


Life beyond Death

by Natrix



Series: Dracula 2020 [1]
Category: Dracula & Related Fandoms, Dracula (TV 2020), Dracula - Netflix, Dracula- BBC
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Romance, F/M, Love/pain/life, Plot, Plot Twists, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 78,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22196377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natrix/pseuds/Natrix
Summary: A season two of my own imaginings picking up where episode three left us. Multi chapter series, ideally more satisfying then where E03 left off but without any changes to the 'canon' episodes.-Dracula finds Life after death to be a little more 'lively' than he expected.Agatha is dead but not gone, Zoe gone but not forgotten...A new player has entered the chess game, only Dracula and Agatha have found themselves on the same side of the board as this 'new player' begins making his moves, but why and how? More importantly 'who' eludes them.
Relationships: Dracula/ Original Character, Dracula/Agatha Van Helsing, Dracula/Zoe Van Helsing
Series: Dracula 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1598212
Comments: 97
Kudos: 127





	1. Life after Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zoe dead but not forgotten, Agatha dead but not gone.  
>  Death wasn't quite what Dracula was expecting.

**Life after death...**

_‘_ _Did you think I would let it hurt in the end_?’ Though her blood sickened his physical form, he was able to separate himself from it, to focus on the joining of their minds, the feeling of her flowing into him, joining him, blood body and soul. Zoe accepting his lips, her body glowing beautiful and radiant in the orange sun. He so rarely felt desire of the physical kind in his long life, so obsessed with taking the life and desires of others, never needing to face his own. But Zoe was here with him now, and in that moment she accepted him, body and soul. There was sorrow in her eyes as she kissed him, her hands running over his face and hands.

“Why?” She asked, always questioning, far too much like Agatha, even in these last moments. “Why now, why me?” She asked as he kissed her breasts, and he didn’t know what to say. Wasn’t it her after all that knew him better than he knew himself? 

“You brought me to the sunlight again.” He her bringing his head above hers and holding her face with his hands. Hands that were starkly human, the nail a natural round. Funny, he wasn't sure if that was Zoey's desire or his own. But that didn't matter any longer. He felt the nausea like a distant wave crash upon the shores of his body, the faintest tremor of it running through him as he held her, and as if to fend off the next strike he tightened his body across hers. Desperate to stay anchored to her, their minds submerged in this place. Zoe sighed into him, and he sensed her fading like sand slipping between his fingers. Or was it he who was slipping? A strange feeling was overtaking him, a coolness overtaking the heat between them. the once Orange red sun becoming paler, pink then blue. Zoe looked up at him, the wetness of tears in her eyes.

“I always thought I would be alone.” She whispered, a sense of wonder in her voice. The words the last of her strength, the last of per passion as her eyes closed and with the dying light she became opalescent, fora moment almost brighter, white hot and beautiful. He wanted to be apart of that light. He couldn't hold onto her, so he closed his own eyes.

“Neither of us are alone now.” He told her, voice cracking as he willed himself to join her. Never knowing if she heard him, his sun was setting now. His beautiful sun… his mountaintop. Death was the last darkness he tread. He faced it, for the first time now, unflinching and without fear, Agatha and Zoe were both with him, and Lucy, sad beautiful Lucy too, his brides. And each and every life he took was there too, their breaths held in adulation, finally able to let go. So he did, and all his senses faded.

* * *

Death was not so dark perhaps. He became slowly aware of a strong brightness around him, annoyingly bright actually. He groaned squinting. Was this heaven or hell? There was a faint humming, like bee's or perhaps flies. Flies would certainly be an aspect of hell, so perhaps Bee's were an aspect of heaven? He would not discount the possibility, though he was slightly annoyed that there were such a thing as heaven and hell after all. He thought the modern day Atheists premise of 'nothingness' far more appealing. Too bad. He squinted at the brightness with a groan.

“If this is heaven you’d think to turn down the bloody lights.” He griped uncomfortably voice ringing loud and almost hollow around him. He argued he was trying to _sleep_. Wasn't death supposed to be one long sleep? But no, in fact he felt rather _hungover_ actually.

“Heaven?” A voice, clipped and familiar asked him from beyond the brightness quickening his alertness. “God has never been known to look kindly on suicide. And I should know.” It said wryly, disembodied. The recognition was instantaneous.

“Agatha?” He said delighted, and attempted to sit up. However it became apparent to him he was quick securely held in place, though he could certainly _feel_ his body. That discounted being incorporeal. He scoured his options. “So this is _hell_ then.” He groaned resting back, noting oddly how cold the place he lay was. He ran his fingers along its surface. it was cold, curiously he gave a little tap with his nail. Metal. He sniffed, picking up the astringent scents of bleach. A hell of Bleach and steel rather than fire and brimstone? No no no, of course not. he would have slapped himself on the head if he could have.

“Another presumption, assuming even hell would take you. what would the devil do with a pitiable creature like you?” She said coolly just beyond the blinding brightness, he tried to get a sense of her direction, but the voice was surrounding him, the faint hum of electricity betraying its origin to be speakers. 

"There was a time you thought I was the Devil." He grumbled and sighed. “Is Zoe with you? Quite clever.” He muttered bitterly, wriggling against his restraints he could not see, but which held him fast to the steel table “Luring me with the cancer spiel to weaken me. You really had me.” It was the only thing that made sense, Dracula could understand betrayal, the memories of him and Zoe's forms tight together, her sigh of release... all an illusion, but not his illusion _hers_. 

“Zoe has… passed beyond us lesser creatures I am afraid. I am sorry.” There was something too cold about her voice, and he digested that slowly, his mind working to understand what she was saying if she was telling the truth.

“If you are not Zoe, how are you here and how am I alive? Her blood-” Agatha scoffed over the speakers interrupting him.

“Dead blood can kill the undead? And where did you get that idea might I ask? Did you get it along with your aversion to light perhaps? Your need to sleep in grave dirt?” Agatha mocked him over the surround speakers. All at once the lights dimmed, and Dracula was left blinking the glare from his vision. There was a woosh of glass doors opening, the tread of feet on tile and suddenly a face loomed above his still blurred in his vision as he squinted up at her. 

“Its been a long time.” She said her face coming into focus hovering above him. Her mousy brown hair was tied up tight making her face look harsher, her cheekbones too sharp, too pale.

“You-” He understood and Agatha’s brows raised haughtily as if she were speaking to a rather slow child.

“Yes.” She snapped. “I am quite dead, for 123 years actually.” She informed him, her voice more cold and clipped than it was ever in life. Her arms crossed as she stared down at him incredulously. “You’ve certainly lost some of your observational skills.” She said dryly. “But perhaps after all this time I made more of you than you were.” 

He began to understand, or at least he thought he did. All the pieces of the last few months beginning to take shape into something coherent. All the little loose ends had been leading to a rope, far thicker, and far more relevant than he might have guessed. His laughter barked out of him, his hands clapping the table top in a kind of applause as his laugh bounded along the cold steel room, filling it with the sound of his raucous cry.

“The puppet master _revealed_! Let me guess, the opaque funding of the Harker institute?" There were other pieces too, how quickly Renfield had responded, though the little man himself had been clueless, the firm had been quite eager to take him up non-the-less, his funds somehow secure after all this time. He studied Agatha's cold sharp face above him. Nothing like Zoe's soft worn very human face. nothing like it at all. Anger pricked at him, the call to blood. "Tell me did you raise Zoe as bait once you realized who she took after?" his teeth snapped together, hunger burning at the back of his throat, but Agatha was unperturbed by the accusation. 

“As her relative should I not have taken an interest in her education?” She answered coyly and Dracula snarled again, but it quickly became a chuckle as he rested back again, looking up to see the steel posts running along the ceiling.

“Your quite a bit more wicked than I remember Agatha.” He observed, a dull ache in his chest that had nothing to do with a physical pain, but which he would not name. “I like it.” He leered. She didn’t look impressed. “Any chance you could-” He gestured down to the vice like restraints. He was confident given enough time he could certainly free himself, but seeing as Agatha seemed so amenable… Her gaze was hawkish, before she gave a sharp jerk of her head, presumably an instruction to someone beyond his gaze. The moment the restraints fell away Dracula was moving, quicker than a human could he was up and had pushed Agatha back, his had at her pulseless throat. Agatha didn’t even flinch, and he felt a small twinge of disappointment as his nails bit into her cheek pressing dimples into them but not drawing blood. His dark eyes searched her almost waxen features, the ache in his chest was there, and he found he was searching for something in Agatha's eyes. Beyond them he heard the scuttling of the cattle and rats at her command, and Agatha, in a cold clipped clear voice called out sharply to settle them.

“Do nothing.” Her grey storm eyes, were now like stones rather than sea. Another pang in him.

They were in a windowed sterile cold steel room with vials and beakers covering cold steel tables, one of which was the table he lain upon at its centre. A lab. 

“No need to panic.” He agreed loudly to whoever might hear, smirking as he peered into the cold flat gaze of this Agatha. “Just old friends getting reacquainted.” He murmured salaciously leaning in close to take a sucking breath between his teeth, close to her mouth. He was hungry, but disappointingly her scent did nothing to stir him. None the less, he leaned in as if she might. “So tell me Agatha, my dear old friend. What is the point to this little game?” Her neck twitched beneath his hand, a signal of a shrug, she was absolutely unperturbed by the closeness of him. Like a statue, cold and hard. The twinge he would not name was settling bitter at the back of his throat settling in with his hunger and his hand flexed at her throat as if he could _force_ a response. Seeking the sign of humanity that the Agatha he once knew had. Seeking to turn the cold stone of her eyes back into the whirling sea it once was... But they remained dead and still.

“Many things have changed since you slept." She told him, her entire body still. "I washed ashore of England all that time ago, a newly born vampire and since then I have built an empire. My _death_ has been dedicated to exterminating and controlling the supernatural of this world and for one hundred years I have been successful within that endevour.” The steel edge in her voice could be mistaken as passion to someone that didn't know Agatha so well, but he recognized it for what it was, a knife. Sharp and ready to cut.

“Then why bring me back? Why re-introduce me back to the land of the living?” Her response was an animated one.

The blow knocked him back, her hand twisting his away in a shocking show of strength. Then in a smooth motion his legs were forced from under him with a skill which could only have been practiced with dedication. He landed hard and before he could rise her boot held him fast to the ground. His mouth forming a little 'o' of surprise and bewildered amusement, the breath knocked cleanly out of him. Not that he needed it. 

“As I said, many things have changed.” She said again imperiously from above him. Not a mousy brown hair out of place. Then her boot came off his chest and she held her hand out to him, not something he would have expected, but certainly interesting. Agatha _always_ knew how to keep him interested. Maybe, he though in delight, not everything had changed after all. “And I have found that the world may need your help.” His disappointment was fading the bitterness at the back of his throat forgotten as he accepted her hand, feeling her supernatural strength which matched perhaps even his own. Her sharp nails bit his wrist threatening to pierce the skin there as his had threatened to pierce her cheeks. Nails just like his own, thick and sharp. Very curious, delight rolled through him as he stared up at the woman he once knew.

“You know I think I might like you. You remind me of someone.” He said and she narrowed her eyes at him as he stood taking her hand back to cross her arms across her body. 

"I assure you Zoe and I's similarity ends beyond the skin." She assured him, but he shook his head, brushed his suit trousers off in big strokes and straightened his suit top. His eyes traveled up her neat pressed, clearly hand tailored suit with its neat black lines and strict posh cuts. He shook his head, before raising his eyes to meet hers. Oh yes there was a clear resemblance there. The thought with a smirk.

"Not her, no no no. Of course not _her._ " He said and dipped in closer to her as if sharing a secret.

"I was going to say you remind me of _me_." There it was, some kind of spark of annoyance in her cold grey eyes and it made him smile. He wasn't expecting Death to be quite so Lively, but after five hundred years, was was a few more?

* * *


	2. Dawn Of the Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A contract is drawn up and the Count finds he will be expected to heed certain boundaries or face consequences. Agatha reveals the reason she's brought the count back.

**Chapter Two: Dawn of the Dead**

“We must have agreement before you leave this room.” She said, arms tightly crossed. Somehow after one hundred and twenty three years she had not lost the posturing of a nun. She had arranged chairs around the table which had once restrained him, having her _girl_ begin arranging her paperwork between them. As if they were sitting for formal negotiations. He'd seen her before, her skin was a little tired around the edges, her brown hair all wound up. He squinted at her realizing she looked familiar and he had the odd inkling that he had tasted her before.. She clasped her hands together at her front and he caught sight of one of her thumbs with the tip _nipped_ off. 

“Even if I agree, what makes you think I won’t just lie?” He asked referring back to the paperwork though he didn't bother to look at it.

“Your honor as a gentleman?” He scoffed at that and he swore her mouth twitched at the corner.

“Still struggling to resist my charm?” He taunted, unable to resist. She pursed her lips.

“Still overestimating your abilities I’m afraid.” She said curtly, but there was no denying a kind of wicked glimmer in her eyes. “Now, I suggest we attend to the matter at hand, lest you desire to remain confined beyond glass for the rest of your _unnatural_ existence?” Dracula sighed and with a somewhat dramatic groan and shifted in his seat like a child reluctant to do his homework.

“You know I do have a lawyer for this.” Where was his little fly catcher anyways? He wondered reaching out vaguely with his mind to see about catching a feel for him. Oddly there was a space where Renfield ought to be. 

“Renfield has been, _relieved_ from your employ.” She said with a quite blatant smirk now.

“ _Relieved?_ ” He snapped hawkishly.

“I have developed some effective ways to care for individuals who have found themselves under influences of the supernatural. In fact I regret to inform you that the firm of Hawkins and Wentworth can no longer see to your needs at this time.”

“Who are you exactly Agatha? or is it still Zoe? I’m getting rather confused now.” He said looking at her name tag which clearly named her as Zoe Van Helsing. 

“Perhaps I should slow down, your diet of club girls has dimmed you quite considerably.” seeing her jab hit home she continued in a self satisfied way leaning back and crossing her arms. “ _We_ are the Drake institute, well I am. I created it along with the Harker institute with the aid of young Mina after I crawled so long ago to the shores of London, a fresh and young vampire. While the Harker institute was created to guard your grave so to speak, I committed to experimentation of myself and the other undead, sharing at times our discoveries but ultimately with the goal of protecting the world from the undead using any means available to us. Of course I ‘Agatha Van Helsing’ do not exist. Nor did she ever wash to shore. However there was a survivor of the Demeter other than the two members of the crew. On very lucky, very wealthy creature all things considered can you imagine who would that be?” The counts brow furrowed before an intrigued look alighted his features.

“Agatha Van Helsing." He chastised. "Or would you go by Agatha Balaur?” Agatha seemed pleased he had caught on.

“You did me a small favor registering me as your bride, why do you think it was so easy for you once you returned to take back your assets, your fortune awaiting you?”

“I should have known you were only marrying me for my money.”

“Unfortunately for you _dear husband_ , it has passed many generations into my hands and now shall remain there. The firm allowed, by my discretion you to access some of the funds when you first rose, but I’m afraid your allowance is no longer.”

“You quite enjoy this don’t you?” He asked and whetted his lips gesturing to the papers. “So what is all this then?”

“A contract.” She said simply.

“A contract for what.” 

“Your gainful employment of course, you will need an income certainly. Luckily for you The Harker Institute has needs of your services.” 

“And what _services_ would that be?” 

“Investigation, participation in certain studies tests of course.” He had to admit he was intrigued.

“My only question is why after one hundred and twenty three years Agatha? Why let me run about, kill people even, why let Zoe die before reeling me in?” Agatha sighed then and he sensed a kind of pained regret there.

“Zoe was dying. Even I could not change that. When I came to accept that we may have _need_ of you I set in motion the discovery of your resting place among the ruins of Demeter. I could not know what would occur, Only place myself ready to take over Zoe’s position when it came time.

“Then you admit to using her, using her to bait me, knowing I’d take a bite?” There was a hint of accusation there. 

“I could not foresee the path that has occurred, but I cannot say I am displeased. Long ago I came to the same understanding which Zoe revealed to you only recently. Your romance with death and your need to overcome it. Only Zoe could have taken you on that journey, only Zoe was _human_ enough to bring it to its natural conclusion.”

“How do _you_ know what Zoe revealed to me?” There was an almost childish fleeting look of embarrassment on her face and she cleared her throat. Dracula touched at his neck suddenly, as if he might feel the remains of a bite there, he didn’t but the sense of mild violation remained.

“I may have taken it upon myself to be sure I was updated on certain key events. I should… thank you actually, for showing Zoe a kindness in the end.” The sting of violation was only partially mollified by her words but not completely.

“If you’ve _seen_ everything then tell me Agatha why would I bother? I was willing to die with Zoe, what makes you think I want to go on now?”

“Curiosity. Discovery, _challenge_!” Her hand struck the table lightly balled into a fist as if attempting to drive her point home. “Think about it Count. Your undeath until now, what has it been but some perpetual flight? A terror of your unconscious dictating your every desire and every action!” There was a heat in her voice that he remembered fondly, it would be a lie to say she wasn’t stirring some part of him. But he kept himself carefully blank. “You’ve had five hundred years of darkness, you could have another five hundred of _sunlight_.” The sun, his eyes flashed closed and the place his heart ought to have been stirred. For an instant with his eyes closed he might have swore he felt the brush of Zoe against him. He blinked his eyes open, attempting to recover his composure. When he picked up the paperwork in front of him she’d knew she’d won, it was only a matter of the count coming to the same conclusion.

So they began to negotiate. 

* * *

“I will agree within some _provisions_.” Agatha nodded arms still crossed tight, expecting no less. 

“And they are?” 

“One.” He said roundly, holding his finger up. “I have my pick of the chosen cattle.” She shrugged, in acceptance. “ _Two_ , permission may be granted in cases when the human is willing.” Her mouth twitched down at that, as if she considered it distasteful but _not_ absolutely disagreeable he noted with some confidence. “And last but not least, I get to feed _manually_.”

“Absolutely not.” she said, her line drawn.

“ _If they give me permission_.” He added, giving a wicked smile. He was quite confident in his charms. Agatha lowered her gaze seeming to consider that and relented with a sigh.

“Very well. These terms are agreeable, providing the age of consent remains at twenty five.” Dracula sat up straighter.

“In my day a girl became a woman at fourteen! Sixteen would suffice however… Agatha shook her head decisively.

“Twenty two.” She countered.

“Eighteen.” Agatha paused to consider.

“Twenty. And no younger, there are some legal ramifications to consider, please remember Count.” The Count tipped his head back and forth as if considering before finally relenting. 

The girl, Her ‘girl’ the assistant with the tightly coiled hair nodded and seemed to be making some notes on her Ipad. He sighed.

“You know I am getting rather peckish how much more of this is there?” He asked shaking his hand towards the Ipad.

“You once said to never rush a nun, well a modern adage might be something like bureaucracy drags on?” She waved her hand, looking like she was enjoying the task as much as he. “We’ve settled your duties, the schedule expected of you… the ethics in which you are expected to conduct yourself, your stipend and living arrangements… and now We’ve settled the manner of your feeding…” She seemed to remember something. “Ah yes… there is one last matter. But it is not one which can be discussed. Lydia, please have the necessary revisions to the contract drawn up and brought to us.” Her girl Lydia nodded, fingers dashing across the screen.

“There is the little matter of the reason you’ve brought me back. I admit I am curious. Whatever it is you must have feared more than me, and that is saying something.”

“It is.” She agreed, rather than playing coy. “And we will come to that in time. Unfortunately we must discuss that now which cannot be reviewed in print..” She seemed hesitant, reluctant even, as he turned to look at Lydia. 

“Lydia would you volunteer for a demonstration?” The count looked between them, curious as to what she was leading to. Lydia gave a small nod of consent, but cleared her throat nervously as she set the ipad down on the table. She stepped back from the table and clasped her hands and kept her head lowered as if waiting for something. Agatha looked back to the count. “Count, I would like you to attempt to feed on Lydia.” He blinked as if he misheard and gave a little laugh.

“Excuse me?” 

“Lydia of course is not consenting clearly, though she may be standing still. Humor me Count, attempt to feed from her.” _attempt to feed,_ a disturbing feeling coursed through.

“What are you playing at.” He asked her through narrowed eyes but stood, his tongue him swiping his lips as he straightened out his suit jacket. He felt oddly put on the spot with the feeling of Agatha’s intense gaze on him which he could see from the corner of his eye. He hesitated before Lydia, attempting to work his way up to it when he saw Agatha raise her brow with a kind of impatience. He snapped his gaze to her with a glare.

“Do you _mind_ ?” Agatha rolled her eyes mockingly away, a laugh around her lips. He swore he heard her mutter something about _performance_ anxiety. He stuck his tongue in his cheek considering a remark but grabbed Lydia firmly by the shoulder instead, making her whimper. His eyes flickered back to her her expression was one of keen discomfort. He leered at her, feeling his teeth come in with his tongue. “Not my first choice, but sometimes bread is the appropriate starter.” He drawled and with his other hand tilted her jaw up to see her pulse dancing just beneath her skin. Her heart seemed to trip on itself as his nails pinched into her cheek. Ah yes it had been awhile, he was quite famished now that he considered it... He felt the saliva building, the trepidation and excitement with it along with a newer foreign sensation he dully noted. Like a weight in his chest where his heart ought to be. But it was easily dismissed. He could feel Agatha's eyes on him, however now instead of making him feel uncomfortable he felt the delight of being the object of her voyeurism. He thought about what it might be like for them to feed together and wondered if she’d tasted this girl before. For a moment his gaze flicked to her, he found er watching quite intently, though he could not decern the emotion behind the gaze. He grinned at her before moving in to - 

He stopped. Hovering above her neck as Lydia peeped in discomfort and fear, her eyes squeezed shut. The count winced, his hand pressing to his sternum a flicker of confusion and uncertainty there. For the weight he had felt had doubled and _hurt_ , as if someone was driving something in. However as relented, so too did the mysterious force. He tried again, like a dog lunging on a lead eliciting another small scream from Lydia whose heart was dancing quite rapidly now, in a frightened tattoo which would have driven him mad before. It did still, but with frustration as he grunted against the force which only increased with his effort, the pain so intense that he stopped, almost certain that the weight was about to drive _through_ him as sure as a stake through his heart. He reeled on Agatha, snarling and snapping in frustration. 

“What did you do to me?”He demanded, Agatha looked almost sympathetic.

“I call it a deterrent.” She said with a smirk. “Consider it something like a chastity belt for Vampires.” She said and gave trembling Lydia a look. “Thank you Lydia, you may take some time now.” She said, and Lydia, sniffed a little, shaking but managing to keep her composure as she took the Ipad back from the table and gave Agatha a little bow of respect before leaving the glass cell. 

“And what does that mean exactly?”

“It _means_ that should certain boundaries be crossed this device will insure the harm is minimal, consider it like a little stake, ready to prick your heart.” The count paced like an angry caged animal a guttural noise escaping him.

“What about your little guns hmm? I can still break your little humans.” Agatha raised her brows in challenge.

“You think so? Let us see.” Incredulous the count watched as she approached the glass. There was beyond a mercenary, perhaps the one he’d seen before, outfitted in black and with a wicked weapon strapped to him. Agatha tapped the glass and with two fingers beckoned the man forward. He opened the door obediently standing ready, his eyes flitting between her and the bestial Count whose teeth were still bared. “Douglas is it?” She asked, though needed no answer. Please provide me with your side arm, safety dis-engaged.” The man obeyed without a blink, and with smooth motions of a man who could shoot as well as he could walk or run he provided the weapon to Agatha, handle towards her. “Thank you, We are providing the count with another demonstration.” She explained to him as if explaining the rules of a game to a child. “I’ll ask that you not engage.” The man didn’t respond, but it was clear he understood. Agatha nodded and changing the grip on the pistol held it outstretched to the Count. He snatched it from her grip and aimed it. His finger already in the trigger guard about to snap- it felt like a blow and he cried out. A kind of high keen pitch exploding in his head the weapon dropped to the ground, but did not land, Agatha smoothly catching it with a preternatural grace as the count clutched at his head a bellow of rage neutering him.

“Thank you Douglas, you may resume your station.” He did not see Douglas’s response, he rounded on Agatha who seemed quite ready to meet his blow, she deflected comfortably but they remained locked, his breath spanning across her face.

“You’ve _neutered me_.” He spat, quivering with rage, but noticing his body did not seem to protest his violence against Agatha. 

“Consider it a _leash_ . You are a _glutton_ of chaos Count, it’s high time you learn a little restraint.” He broke away with a roar of anger. Slashing at the nearest table and causing it to fly apart, demolishing the delicate instruments shattering them against the ground.

“And how am I to feed?”

“There are times when restrictions can be lifted and altered depending on the situation. In the case of feeding consent will be all that is required, though it will re engage should you drink too deeply.”

“Clever, Clever Agatha.” He spat with a glowering kind of loathing. “You’ve thought of everything haven’t you?”

“I have had one hundred and twenty three years to make necessary arrangements, do not feel too embarrassed.” She said watching as he collected himself, his hand running over his face, his fangs returning to a more human shape. “If it helps, just consider them the boundaries of polite society.” He wanted to rip her face off. “Now, I believe that concludes the preliminary business. Now it is time to show you why you are here in the first place.” She said, rising to move to the door and inviting him to follow.

* * *

Curious gazes followed them as they strode through the building, the count keeping his hands in his pockets feeling oddly amiss, sullen almost at Dr. Van Helsing's side. Apparently it had been quite an easy thing for Agatha to become ‘Zoe’, for as they passed some called out in respectful greeting to her. They approached a door, still deep within the dungeon. There was a crew of four ‘guards’ there, though they were different in appearance to the other mercenaries, their ‘uniform’ and on the breast was an emblazoned crest.

“Is that what I think it is?” Of course he knew the symbol, it was the very same one on his ring. It was _his_ insignia. He asked and turned to her, sullen mood temporarily forgotten. “Now I know your just sentimental.” There was a some amusement there as she came to a stop before the guards.

“Count, these are four of an eight person security detail which the Drake institute has been kind enough to provide.” It was obvious that by ‘security detail’ that they were to secure _him_ from _others_ . He grinned at them keen to set them on edge and looking from face to face.

“The mercenaries weren’t enough? I suppose I’m flattered.” They had stood at attention as they had seen them coming down the hall, and now that they were before them they stood calmly allowing themselves to be assessed. It was a predominantly Caucasian group with one darker skinned potentially Latino man, and one female out of the four. His gaze hovered over her briefly, assessing within a moment she was somewhat plain, her face blank of any makeup and the light of the hall making her appear tired and sallow. Not particularly tempting. His eyes slid away.

“The mercenaries are apart of a different funding source, I wanted to keep these closer to home.” She said like a half thought, giving a nodding in greeting to the four. Though each of them had a sidearm, their predominant weapon was a small crossbow at their hip. Smart Agatha. He hadn't a clue what Zoe had been thinking with all of her guns.

“Pleased ta meet ya sir.” Said the tallest in a Scottish brogue, a worn looking man with sandy red hair who extended his hand to the count who stared at it incredulously. 

“Charmed.” He said slowly, not taking the hand. The two shared a tense kind of smile before he dropped it, and turned his gaze to Agatha.

“Thank you Wilson, you may remain here until otherwise instructed.” She said but offered him a friendly and respectful nod. Wilson stepped to the side of the door, opening his arms to allow them to pass. Dracula felt the sharpness of his gaze and the faintest sneer of a challenge there and smiled wickedly as he passed offering the man a wink. 

The room was similar to the glass box which they had just left. He wondered just how many rooms there were like it in this labyrinth. This room however was curiously dim. Lydia was there, apparently waiting for them. It seemed to be as per plan, because Agatha didn’t seem surprised or even not the woman's presence. Her eyes were fastened to the center of the dimly lit room, one which might have been too dark for human eyes but Dracula could see within the glass observation cage a bed and a figure within it. The rasp of breath tickled a curious unnatural rattle seeming to escape through the glass. He sniffed and detected an odd sour kind of putrification, like the smell of puss. He listened again, tilting his head to hear beyond the rasp of breath, searching for the pulse. There was a long moment before he heard what could be called a heart beat. But it was unnaturally slow. He turned to look at Agatha in the dark and she shared his expression, seeming to understand exactly what he was hearing. She motioned to Lydia.

“The lights Lydia.” Lydia moved with a quiet rustle to a panel on the wall. 

Its reaction to the flood of light was to moan, a low terrible thing which escaped her throat along with her rattling breaths. Milky eyes stared, with its mouth open almost too wide as the creature which had once perhaps been a woman gaped. She was bound to the bed but where her arms were restrained the skin had worn away, sloughing off as she struggled against them. Reaching up with her mouth. The fetid smell of puss welled up again and it seemed to swing its head as if its milky eyes could see them somehow, but though it cast its milky eyes over the count and Agatha, it settled only on Lydia. Its jaw jerking forward, its body pitched keenly in her direction as if intent to reach her. There was another sluggish thud which could hardly pass for the beat of a heart.

“It’s not quite alive is it?” The count murmured, fascinated and found himself moving towards the glass. “But not undead either.” Agatha sighed and joined him at his elbow.

“Its like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Not quite living, not quite undead…”

“What is it then?” He asked, turning to her in a kind of wonder.

“We call them the living dead…and whatever they are… they’re spreading.”

"How... _brilliant_."

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still looking for a Beta reader to help clean up each chapter. PM if your interested.  
> Thanks for reading :)


	3. Beasts Within, Beasts without Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dracula tests his new boundaries and starts picking favorites...

**Chapter Three: Part One: Beasts within, Beasts without:**

_“We call them the living dead…and whatever they are… they’re spreading.”_

Agatha addressed Dracula without taking her eyes of the creature behind the glass. 

“I had it brought here during the night. These creatures have _arisen_ in several locations over the years. First in isolated areas, I believed at first that this must have been a mutation, _incidental_. At each uprising we were able to stamp it out easily due to the remoteness of the outbreaks.”

“Outbreaks?” He asked, not taking his eyes off the ghoulish little thing in the bed. 

“A single bite is all that it takes, spreading from human to human within hours the infected _devolve_ becoming… _this_. Unable to feel pain, shambling, stupid but hungry. Oh yes do enjoy eating.” She said so grimly he could only imagine what she meant.

“A pathogen of some kind?” Certainly interesting.

“A Weaponized virus.” She corrected sharply and he looked to see her expression grim. “This woman was not from Cambodia, or India, she lived a stones throw from London and she was infected quite intentionally as what I can only imagine to be some kind preliminary test for biogenic terrorism.”

“What would the purpose of such a thing be?”

“Terrorists attempt to create _terror_ , for money, for blood, for revenge perhaps. Whatever it is, who ever is doing it, they need to be stopped.”

“And humans think I’m a monster.” He muttered. “And you think I can help?” He was yet to see how exactly.

“I know you can. You were conducting experiments before the concept of science had even been taken seriously. You have insights, which I may not have.” She spoke in a way that he was sure was meant to fluff him up, but he didn’t quite buy it, there was a hollowness there. She was leaving it out. 

“Your flattering me, but that’s not the whole truth is it?” She looked reluctant to answer.

“The virus has a specific _pattern_ to it. A kind of _paternal_ lineage. It is the same lineage found in me, that is to say count it is _your_ lineage. Whoever created these things shares the markers of your own vampire-'ess', it’s something that is passed from Sire to child.” She said coolly. The word she used surprised him and he raised his dark brows at her voice sharp.

“ _Child_?”

“Perhaps you would prefer the term bride?” Agatha rebuked cheekily jerking her head at the thing in the bed, he made a face. The count cleared his throat.

“And what would you have me do with this _child_?” 

“Would you consider taking a working lunch?” His eyes narrowed as if waiting for the other shoe to drop, surely she couldn’t mean..? But Agatha's expression remained perfectly cold and neutral, her arms crossed, and stormy grey eyes unwavering.

“You can’t expect me to- with _that_?” Agatha rolled her eyes as if dealing with a child refusing his broccoli.

“You above any might be able to establish a connection through this creature. You have the capacity to exert control as you did with Renfield. This ‘creature’ _is_ still living and carries traces of your plague, by that theory you need merely establish a connection.” _need merely establish a connection_. Dracula could have scoffed. Easy for her to say.

“You have a living to earn, but I will not force you.” _but I could force you_ seemed to be implied he narrowed his eyes.

“What about you, your a ‘vampires’ in your own right, surely you can do this yourself?” But Agatha shook her head.

“Unfortunately I cannot. I may have kept my mind, AND my will as a vampire but the dark gift which you possess have always eluded me. I suspect it has to do with the restraint in which I dine in comparison to your relative _gluttony_.” Somehow she could always turn a compliment to an insult. That was his Agatha. He studied her curiously, pressing his finger to his mouth before turning his gaze back to the creature in consideration. 

“You’ve become a king Agatha.” He did not say this with reproach as he gazed into the glass, staring at Agatha’s reflection in its surface while avoiding his own. He wondered what she saw in the mirror and the question was on his tongue, but died there. His comment had Agatha looking at him questioningly, arms still crossed as if braced for an insult. “You remember our little chess game?” She could never have forgotten, even if she tried he tired to her finger wagging teasingly. “ _You need_ someone powerful to move across the board in any direction at any moment…” He said in a little sing song gentle teasing and continued waving his hand. “While you prop up your little bureaucracy.” He said gesturing to the room at large, and inferring that beyond. He sighed and then flashed her a wicked grin, leaning in close to her “Agatha my dear. Are you asking me to be your Queen?” Agatha cleared her throat.

“Shall Queen be your official title, I could order you a name badge?” She snarked but they shared their amusement, Dracula was beginning to think she’d missed him as much as he missed her. Agatha’s face became more serious again as if she disliked that reminder. “Will you do it?” She asked, plaintive almost polite even. He sighed, and groaned. 

“If I do this, I expect a _palate cleanser_ to follow… Or two.” He added quickly. Agatha was already nodding. 

“Your donors have been orientated by Mrs. Bloxham and await your discretion.” She did not bother suppressing her pleasure at his acceptance, her voice sharp and assuring. She gestured to Lydia Bloxham who joined their side. Apparently having kept an ear on their conversation she was ready to jump right in.

“Several donors are available immediately, you might like to look at their files?” Dracula sighed, waving his hand like waving away a pestering waiter asking him to order before he could settle in. 

“Business first, pleasure later..” He grumbled, as if he wasn’t quite convinced himself of the sentiment. Agatha remained looking pleased, but then checked her watch with a flickering glance. 

“I am quite pleased to hear that Count. I will leave you within Mrs. Bloxhams capable hands. I have some other matters to attend to…” She turned to regard her woman, Lydia Bloxham. “Perform the appropriate methods and checks of decontamination as we have discussed.” Lydia in her white lab coat nodded in agreement.

“Of course Dr. it is quite alright, I can take it from here.” Dracula couldn’t resist a playful smile at that, and a little wink as he glanced at her finger. She squeezed her hand together as if it tingled at his gaze.

“Then I leave you to it.” She met his gaze evenly, “I look forward to hearing the results.”

And she left. Dracula removed his coat, folding it smooth and handing it to Lydia who frowned before taking it as if uncertain that this was within her job description.

“Your aware of what she is? Who she is?” He remarked, watching Lydia without fully turning to her as he began to deftly roll up his sleeves. He didn’t want to get himself dirty and he had an odd premonition that this would somehow be a messy business. Lydia was clearing her throat and answering him quietly her hands clasped at her front with his coat draped over her arm.

“I worked with the Drake institute and Agatha _Balaur,_ _before_ I became Zoe Van Helsing's director. She was an excellent Doctor, and a good friend. She will be missed, but I believe in what Agatha is doing, what she’s doing would make her niece proud.” She said looking sad and distant. Zoe welled up in his mind without bidding, flashes of her memories with Lydia, their friendship. He surprised himself by speaking.

“She kept her distance but she considered you a friend… She died peacefully if it makes a difference.” She met his gaze for a moment, looking surprised, if not a little unsettled but nodded.

“It does.”

“Shall we get to business?” He prompts her, eager not to linger on the faded traces of warmth Zoe once left within him. Lydia nodded, her coat slung over her arm as she backed herself to the wall of the room. Moving to a console which he logically assumed would open and close the door at a distance. He positioned himself before the door, “Ready when you are.” He murmured. 

The door opened in a woosh. The smell of infection hot and foul in the air. Not exactly appealing. He stepped clearing the door. The creature did not seem to register his presence. Not even as he drew near. He may have well have been a ghost. She was still pitched forward against her restraints intent on Lydia, her mouth gaping open and saliva pooling from her mouth in a stream. The doors behind the glass box opened and the entourage of security officers entered. It was to be a show then, he didn’t mind.

* * *

Biting into her was like biting into the fresh of rotting fruit, the blood that coated his tongue thick and fetid, cool and almost slimy. He did not draw much, but rather held it there and stretched out with his mind. With most humans there were flashes of ones noisiest thoughts, current feelings (most often fear or shock). This creature however he found himself at the center of a void, a darkness like a dripping cold cavern surrounding him. Strange to say an odd feeling of trepidation overcame him, the sensation of being watched.

Of being hunted. 

Or ambushed.

It took him off his feet it his him so hard. For a moment he was caught between the dark of the mind drawing him in, and the cutting flashes of the physical. He vomited, the floor splattering with its putrid black essence and he found his legs giving way. The surreal feeling of falling overcame him and within a blink he was back into the inky darkness, he felt the creatures grip on him, as if dragging him beneath the surface of his own unconscious and holding him down. Though it looked real to him enough, at his legs the Count stopped clawing, instead lashed out, delivering a blow to the creatures face. It screamed, scuttling back disappearing into the darkness.. 

“You want a fight?” He snarled picking himself off the floor of his proverbial unconscious, his blood was humming, a strange kind of heat burning through him, his old warrior blood was calling him as he laughed. “I’ll give you a fight, here doggy doggy.” He called into the expanse. He felt it coming and ducked before its monstrous limb could strike him. In his own mind he was master, and he found it easy enough to take the creature by its arm. It was as biting into the woman was, the soft bruise flesh of a fruit turning to rot. He noted with curiosity that this creature was a strange amalgamation of things a twitching beastly humanoid with a rat or vulpine like nose, its body seemingly stitched together. He twisted the arm of it, pivoting it at its elbow where a haphazard seam bound its flesh. The creature screamed. He pressed his fingers deeper into the flesh rotted and giving way to his touch ,the creature followed his pull down seizing in pain. Though it was a large brutal thing it had only the advantage of surprise on the count and nothing more. The count pulled it to the ground before him and placed his boot on its ribs, joy and satisfaction rising at the squelching pops and screams its seams burst finally, pus and blood like mustard and ketchup ran from the wound in a torrent and the creature thrashed in agony. 

“Not much to you when it comes down to it is there?” He laughed, brought his heel to its temple feeling a sickening crunch of bone, its skull bursting like an overripe melon. He noticed as his boot came down that the creature had no eyes, as if its flesh had been sewn over. It gurgled as he stomped and satisfied it was dead he stopped to stare at it. It twitched, but it was merely the puckering of skin when a hair is being plucked. He focused his gaze, at first not quite seeing and then… like the shifting of light catching on the previously invisible threads of web he saw shining like silver puppy strings little threads. Carefully he reached forward towards one moving to touch the thread. 

There was a flash, a _mind_ brushed against his Dracula pulled his hand away from the thread, his hand cut and the shock of pain lancing through him as real as any pain. Unnerved he took a step back as the threads began to hum, the creatures crushed skull beginning to tremble, what was left of its bestial maw beginning to gape open and closed as if a puppeteer was attempting to puppet his shattered ventriloquy doll. From the depths of the beasts maw a garbled choking noise arose.

_‘WE.SEE.YOU.’_ Came its guttural putrid voice. Fascinated the count strummed his hands along the threads. They quivered. Then they snapped.

“Who are you?” He asked, but like spiders webs suddenly suddenly caught the threads of silk seemed to catch in the breeze, blowing away. No longer anything holding it together the body began to putrify, slickening and oozing like a great melted candle pooling out now without shape to hold it. Returning to a state of foul puss from whence it came. It seemed over, but then he caught sight of something solid within the slime. Slick and pale the fluid pooling away to leave it shivering like foul afterbirth. The shape of a human shoulder, the curve of a sunken waist and body hollow and malnourished from within a monstrous brithings sack. He recognized her.

It was the body of the woman on the table, the one with her wrists bitten to the bone by the restraints. Her eyes were hollow and wide. Dracula stooped to her side, wading into the muck and reaching a hand to her. Reaching into her mind, brushing his mind with hers now that he could reach her. He murmured to her in the dark. 

“Look at both of us. Shadows of what we were.” He mused speaking down to the hollow slick creature, its eyes beginning to roll around in confusion. “Once alive and vibrant and now reduced to such filth… And me, reduced to digging around in the refuse.” 

“My - my baby.” She rattled hollowly beginning to blink and eyes beginning to roll around with the beginnings of consciousness. He smiled down at the piteous creature. 

“Yes, _your baby_ , shall we go see her?” He asked, catching her eyes and holding them, his will flooding forth in a dark command. _Show me_.

A barrage of images, flashes of a life that once was. 

Then they were no longer within the dark of the subconscious. But in a nursery. He could taste it now that he had overcome the sour taint in her blood. Her essence lingered on the back of his pallet, her most recent memories, the last clear moments of consciousness… 

* * *

He watched the woman, slightly fuller and fresher looking cradling her infant in her arms humming and then lowered her face to kiss the baby who coo’d in delight. She kissed it again. The smell of rot wafted to him, the only warning that something was amiss and he watched in peculiar fascination as the descended to kiss the baby again that she took a bite of its cheek. It was the bloodcurdling scream of _death_ that rattled through the infant, not the usual wails of an upset fussy child, but the squall of an infant caught by a predator. An animal calling out with every horror of its being. He could feel the woman's blood screaming in memory. The image went dark and he winced as the consciousness of the woman thrashed in a kind of psychic horror of remembering. He recalled Agatha’s dark comment ‘ _they do love to eat_.’ Now he understood what she meant by that.

“Ewe, well that quite gory isn’t it?” He cleared his throat, brushing his hands as if to dust himself off and reached out again to her, calling her focus back. The image returned, this time the woman aware of herself, holding her baby pale and trembling in horror as she held it.

“I ate my baby.” She said but as if trapped in the cycle of memory she lowered her mouth to the squalling babies hand and crunched the little digits between her teeth. Dracula clapped his hands together in front of her face, attempting to call her attention.

“ _Helloooo_ , okay, focus now,” he searched for a name and found it watery and weak. “Sherry, focus love, put down the baby. What happened before the baby?” 

“Before?” She mumbled looking confused as she licked her bloody lips.” Her face struggled to think about it.

The nursery around them changed, a different time, a different feeling. A _before._ The child slept soundly now and there was Sherry at the door speaking to someone. A woman, perhaps seventeen. 

“You sure you can handle it?” Sherry asked sounding anxious, she was holding her purse, digging about inside of it. “I’m sure that me and Daniel can cancel date night.” The girl rolled her eyes. She was a pretty thing, but there was something the Count could only describe as _trashy_ about her. Her hair was done in braids, clothes too tight, too much makeup and a kind of indolent look about her.

“Stop freaking out Sherry, I can handle my niece for a night.” The girl said, sounding defensive, as if ‘Sherry’ were calling to question her ability to babysit. 

“I’m not-” Sherry suddenly winced. Jerking her hand out of her bag. “Shit!” she cussed quietly raising her hand from the bag saw it was cut. A ruby red drop of blood welling. Before she could raise it to her own lips the girl snatched it, pressing her lips to the cut. Sherry gasped and gave a yelp, and the girls eyes flashed open as she seemed to recall herself and she released Sherry’s hand with a laugh of masked tension.

“Look, I kissed it better, just like a mommy would.” She sneered. And Sherry glared at her, pressing the wound on her forefinger with their thumb to dull the pain.

“If you weren’t Daniel’s sister I’d...” Sherry began to hiss, but the younger woman snorted. 

“You’d what? Have to pay an actual babysitter?” She sneered. 

The image became watery, as if her mind was no longer able to hold its shape. Dracula sensed the need to leave, dropping away from the memories and light, and beginning to swim to the surface of his own mind.

He broke the surface trapped in a spider web.

Or at least that’s how it appeared. He blinked to see the shocked wide eyes of Lydia and the security team beyond the spidery fractures. There was an echo of a savage cry echoing through the room, he mildly perturbed to realize it was coming from _him_. Bewildered he fell silent, and dropped his fists which he saw were at the center of two pits where the clear filaments of reality became frosted crystal. Glass. He stumbled back. The glass wall which kept him isolated was fractured with blow which could only have come from fists. There was a sea of uneasy faces beyond the glass in the room looking like they’d just witnessed something quite horrifying. He cleared his throat awkwardly, mouthing at the sour blood which lingered on his tongue. 

“C-c-count?” Mrs. Bloxham’s voice rang through a sound system tremulously. Dracula was still gathering himself together, his hair was mussed with effort. His shirt bloody and soaked, and spattered. He felt something between his teeth and running his tongue over it moved to pick out a chunk of sinew. Then the nausea hit him. He dropped to all fours to see the floor was slick with blood and slime and he found himself retching violently, slippery chunks rising from his throat and spilling out of on the floor. His body expelling…what? The count spotted within the viscera blood, teeth and… an eye? The retching came to a stop, the entire strain of it making him feel shaky, he blinked to see the edge of the bed, the woman's arm hanging limply from it. It twitched and he sat back alarmed to see.

Where the woman had lay was now a bloodied creature missing half its face, down to its throat where it looked like a beast had devoured chunks of it. Its half eaten tongue lolled out of its mouth with its one remaining eye rolling. It grunted almost rhythmically. _'Did I do that?'_ The count remembered dully a flash of the feeling of biting into the sunken cheek of.... bleh. He blinked.

“UUULLLL EEEEEUH, ULLLL EEEUH.” It gargled mindlessly. The count spit the sour taste in his mouth lingering and his hands covered in slime he rose drenched in filth and only becoming vaguely aware that he had caused it all himself. Vague flashes came back to him. Hunger, rage, his fists hitting the glass… He’d been temporarily overtaken by the pathogen, whatever it was. While he had locked with its mind, it had been enjoying the use of his body. He wrinkled his nose and spit again grunting in disgust.

“This is why one does not eat _suspect_ food.” He announced loudly. “I’ll take that pallet cleanser anytime Mrs. Bluxom. Anytime.” He grumbled drolly feeling their stares.

“Y-your sure your quite alright?” She stared at him as if nervous he was about to suddenly go rabid again.

“Absolutely, I’m ready to leave at anytime!” He assured her, but she did n’t look quite so convinced. 

“Of course, there's just the little matter of the decontamination to handle.”

* * *

And wasn’t that a bloody _procedure_ . Around him the nurses crawled like aunts. Taking his blood and saliva, asking him to strip down naked, perhaps the only thing which saved him from absolute boredom was the entertainment of exposing himself to the curious gazes of the nurses and security team. Remembering the revelry as he once stood much the same outside a nunnery not so long ago. _Suffer unto me_. Instead he stretched his arms out, still covered in gore which had soaked through his clothing.

“If Cleanliness is next to godliness, I think it’s pretty obvious where that leaves me.” He said spreading his arms before all those nurses and security officers. That earned a few suppressed smiles from the nurses.

The little Latino guard guffawed as Dracula winked at one who was sneaking a peek as she ran too and fro.

The tall security officer was elbowing his companion. ' _Ah yes_ ,' the plain looking female, a petite thing whose authority was instantly betrayed by her flushing pink cheeks and avoidance of his gaze. He tapped the glass with his nails, knowing she could hear him, though he couldn’t hear her. 

“ _Cooeeee_ , hello sweetheart.” He cooed, causing her to look up in mortification as prudish as any nun. God he could _do_ with a nun again. Despite how he might glory in the modern woman's overt sexuality there was something lacking in this era of the _repression_ which somehow sweetened the flesh of the young. What was the saying, _variety is the spice of life_ ? The girl who stood a head lower than her tall companion jerked her head up to him looking to spit out something venomous at him for drawing the Counts attention, which caused the man to laugh. That might have been it, Dracula might have forgotten the incident completely but then the big man, _‘Wilson’_ he remembered now, faced the count with a deadly look of warning in his eyes though his mouth curled in mock mirth, it could not hide the sharp warning, the _challenge_ . Like a dog snarling over a bone. _What is a dog to a wolf_? He thought. He hadn’t had a good competition for awhile. Lydia suddenly distracted him, her voice crackling over the speakers. 

“Count, could you begin describing what you experienced while we wait?” Lydia interrupted his and the Security officers heated look. 

“Our little sherry had a ride along,” He answered with a shrug. “Easy enough to handle, tied to some kind of consciousness, a weak one.”

“Did you get a sense of _who_ this consciousness was?” Lydia asked, fingers dashing across the screen taking notes eagerly.

“No but I did get a sense. He’s young, and he’s got a _sick_ sense of humor, did you know he made poor sherry _eat_ her own baby?” He chuckled in wicked amusement, leaning his side buttocks against the glass as he crossed his arms. “Quite despicable really.” He chuckled, Lydia didn’t see fit to answer him but registered revulsion as she cleared her throat and attempted to refocus him. 

“Did you see how it happened? The point of infection?” The count frowned, attempting to recall the watery images which seemed to be slipping away almost too quickly, like a dream. He smacked his lips together trying to draw back the memory. Flashes of the nursery, and the young woman, pinching sherry’s bleeding finger with her teeth.

“There was a girl. A _babysitter_. Trashy little thing, looked like she taste like cosmetic powder.” He curled his lip, but refocused on the memory, Sherry hadn’t said her name, but she had said something else… what was it again? “The girl said that the child was her niece.” He recalled slowly. Lydia was typing furiously when a nurse approached her to whisper something in her ear. 

Finally, they were ready to sanitize him.

* * *

Naked and fresh as a babe having been poked prodded and slapped, the scrubs Lydia handed him to dress was the final affront.

“Ah, and what are these?” He held up the offending attire making Lydia look uncomfortable.

“Its what we have available...” She stammered apologetically.

“That _is_ unfortunate,” He said, and having taken the bundle pushed it into a nearby nurses arms who took it looking bewildered. “That's a lass.” He winked and stretched a little.

“I am of course _famished_.” He said as the security detail shifted uncomfortably around him. Lydia looked almost desperate. It was quite satisfying. 

“B-but sir you really should-” 

“Should perhaps, but _won’t_. Until something resembling decency comes, I suppose I will gladly remain _gloriously_ _indecent_.” She swallowed looking rather uncomfortable. “Now, that _drink_ I’ve been promised.”

They took a lovely walk down the corridors enjoying the stares of staff and researchers gawking as they passed. He had a presence which could not be ignored and revelled in every look and mutter and glance. Wilson led them with a stern and fierce expression, suddenly sour and grim, the little on taking up their rear with the other two flanking he and Lydia through the wide corridors. With Lydia at his side clutching her Ipad to her chest in her white doctors coat he carried himself like the pope, only with a cleaner conscious.

He was brought to a large room with a pulpit sort of dais at its center, though the seating extended in rows like stares rising upwards so that the speaker was in the lowest point. A _lecture hall_. He tasted the word, having gotten it from somewhere, perhaps Lucy who had been attending college classes. She had never much liked school his Lucy. Within the room however was the jostling of life and the rise of several humans which increased in pitch as he entered the room bare and quite glorious. The whispers rose then became hushed as he faced them, eyes travelling from face to face at those who willingly came as cattle. Lydia took the pulpit, fumbling for a moment. 

“Thank you for coming, we _apologize_ for the… a..” she struggled to find the term glancing fretful at the counts state. “Immodesty. However I think we can all be adults about this situation...” The count eyed the curious smattering of several humans dispersed within the pews. Impatient and impudent his voice filled the chamber easily.

“Which one of you?” He asked, ignoring Lydia’s agonized look as she wiped her sweating brow. “Which of you here is willing to offer yourself to me?” His gaze raked over several faces, each staring and shifting uncomfortably. “You see, I despite whatever little non disclosure forms you signed, despite whatever they _told you_ . I do not accept _donations_ , I do not accept charity.” He drawled contemptuously and continued. “You see while _they_ would happily feed me substandard fare, I will settle for nothing less, then the finest. My body is my temple, and such a fine temple it is as you see.” he said smugly holding his arms out as if by demonstration causing a small titter to rise from the crowd. “So, tonight, I found myself craving the sciences.” He scoured the crowd, descending step by step searching. “Any of you which don’t fit that qualification, may leave.” He said, gesturing with a dismissive wave and crossed his arms waiting. Lydia cleared her throat at the pulpit.

“You heard him. Thank you for attending. You will hear back from us soon, cheques can be collected at the counter.” She said allowing the security team to usher them out. Only two uncertain faces remained, looking uncertain. He rubbed his hands together, not all together disappointed as he pointed to the young woman.

“You.” He said, “Main course… and you.” He pointed to the other, a golden haired young man whose eyes were sharp and critical. “Dessert.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey Guys, just wanted to add a little prelude about whats to come.  
> We are moving into O.C territory. She necessary to the plot and I hope you can enjoy the characters which will be introduced. I'm hoping the OC will give us a chance to see a different side of the count which is developing as a result of devouring the last of Zoe. And lets face it he's always looking a 'dorabella' or a 'lucy' to keep him entertained. 
> 
> Rest assured we will not be forgetting Agatha / Dracula, rather consider the chapters between a substrate and a means to build their relationship over the course of the plot. Agatha the cold scientist having believed she's isolated the counts most elemental properties will be shocked to find that when placed under particular restraints and adding a few other elements he might still be capable of surprising her. Even if the count is as oblivious as ever as to why.
> 
> Agatha might not be in the fore, but she's there and she'll peek out every now and again to remind us of that fact. Or rather to remind the count of that fact. :)
> 
> Hope you enjoy.


	4. Beasts within Beasts without Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dracula plays with his food and picks his new toy.

**Part 2 Beasts within, beasts without:**

_ “You.” He said, “Main course… and you.” He pointed to the other, a golden haired young man whose eyes were sharp and critical. “Dessert.”  _

The man glared but did not say anything. Lydia was looking and sounding more worn and frazzled by the minute.

“You can of course opt out at any time,” She said with a pause as if she expected them to do exactly that, but then rushed on as if trying to rip a band aid off. “If not then please follow us we will get you settled.”

\---

There was a waiting room where Lydia settled the sharp eyed young man (or boy) and spoke quietly to the woman, the Latino security officer opened a door across the room which led to a greater room. Dracula entered, somewhat impressed to see the halfhearted attempt made for comfort, though the bar which appeared to be stocked with a mini fridge as well as a dolly with sweets and bottled drinks indicated it was not  _ his _ comfort they were directing their attention to. Despite their best efforts, any attempt at style was ruined by the mechanical sterile implements of the room which gave everything an out of place look. Like someone had tried to move a living room into a hospital. A lounge and ottoman and a few scattered stools made up the fabric of the room. 

The count did a little circle of the space making everyone watching uneasy as he finished his evaluation.

“It will have to do, but we might discuss a re decorator.” He said and propped his leg atop the ottoman far too comfortable and still as naked as the day he was born. Lydia was avoiding even to look a him, clearing her throat every moment or two. 

“If your ready-” Lydia said, gesturing to the female donor. A young woman with hair all bundled up in a messy looking bun and brown eyes behind thick frames. Wilson followed her into the room and seeing the count quite ‘widespread’ her face turned a lovely crimson and she covered her hands over her face stifling a mortified laugh, pitched with anxiety

“Oh my.” She said.

“Count  _ please.”  _ Lydia begged with the edge of impatience and frustration. 

The count sighed, noting that the room felt terribly crowded with two security officers and Lydia present, ignoring Lydia he instead looked to the blushing girl with tawny skin and crimson cheeks who had trouble knowing where to look. 

“Please make yourself comfortable.” She said to the girl who nervously took a seat at the edge of the lounge, her face still covered. 

He sighed and clucked his tongue as giving Lydia an accusing sort of pout as if she were the cause of the girls mortification. 

"I think you would agree Mrs. Bluxom we ought to do what we can to make this lovely lady as  _ comfortable  _ as possible.” Lydia’s brow raised as if to say  _ seriously _ ? “And I think the uh,  _ crowd _ is making her uncomfortable, isn’t it?” He asked gesturing to the very busy room earning a glower from Wilson.

“A security officer is _required_.” Lydia said with an edge.

“Of course and I am perfectly comfortable with ' _ A'  _ security officer. I wouldn’t _dream_ of disrespecting the rules, but perhaps a more feminine presence would make her feel more comfortable?” He felt the heat of Wilson's brutish stare and it warmed his cockles, peaking his hunger. Lydia wasn’t looking pleased but she turned her head up to Wilson with a shrug that said ‘ _ well technically _ ’. 

“I don’t see how tha’s-” He began to sputter in his brogue. The count cut in, clasping his hands together looking sympathetic, he could see in the room beyond them the little blonde female officer he'd caught blushing earlier with her cheek tilted towards them clearly listening. His gaze moved between her and the reddening face of Wilson who saw exactly where he was looking. He grinned.

“I've just heard so much about this wonderful _equality,_ so prided by modern times." He flashed the stoic blonde officer his most charming look though she pretended to be oblivious as he continued. "I can’t imagine you would say that as a female she is _incapable_ of doing the same duty as a male.” Lydia looked uncomfortable and an annoyed looking Wilson quite mottled red. His voice was all innocent suggestion. 

Having been listening the whole time the female security swiftly came forward to put her hand on Wilson's arm.

“Wil, it’s _fine_.” She said with a edge of insistence, even annoyance. Wilson's jaw flexed and Lydia shot a worried look between the two, clearly uncertain. Then Wilson relented, jerking his head at the other guard leaving Lydia and the female security officer in the room. Lydia clapped her hands together trying to move things along.

“Alright, if that is settled then I will remain to handle the transfusion-” the count once again held up his hand to stop her, wicked little smile playing at the corners of his mouth. 

“That is yet to be seen, we do have an agreement after all.” He reminded her smirking and the count turned slid down from the lounge to kneel before the girl. Lydia’s eyes bulged and she looked apoplectic as he slide his hand to the girls knee evoking a startled noise from her and causing her to drop her hands revealing her face and eyes to him.

“Shhh sh shh. Don’t be shy.” He told her squeezing her leg gently. For her leg was bare, a skirt which came to knee level was easily slid beneath. Lydia shared an uncomfortable look with the blonde security guard who'd taken position by the door and they exchanged uncertain uncomfortable looks. The donor made a muffled embarrassed biting her lip “Tell me sweetheart what's your name?”

“B-linda.” She murmured and the count with his other hand gently took her wrist to ease it away from her face. He smiled at her as if he were quite proud of the feat and squeezed the hand gently even as his thumb stroked her thigh. His voice speaking in even measured tones.

“Why did you sign up for this little program  _ Belinda? _ ” Her name curled by his tongue sounding sensual. She cleared her throat, looking a little more flattered than mortified, the other hand lowered from her heated cheeks instead moving to grip the edge of the lounge seat. Her cheeks inflamed as she teetered between discomfort, anxiety and a kind of flustered amusement.

“I uh, needed the funds. For uni.” She answered as if she wasn’t quite sure that was the correct answer. The Count nodded but paused with a critical little frown like that was something missing from that answer. 

“Of course, but that wasn’t the only reason was it? That wasn’t why you  _ stayed  _ when you could have just walked out.” He asked and shyly she responded with a shake of her head eyes now locked to his as if he might have all the answers of the universe and he was controlling it all with the stroke of his thumb against her thigh. The count continued happy to supply her with the answers she was lacking “No, you were  _ curious _ weren’t you? Now, would you rather get a cold  _ pinch _ in the crook of your arm, or did you come here for the  _ experience _ ?” The girl seemed to hold her breath and Lydia finally interjected, unable to contain herself.

“Belinda you are by no means required  _ or _ expected to-” She was cut off soundly by the girls somewhat wavering voice. 

“N-no I want to!” She said and cleared her throat as the count smiled his wicked and pleased smile as the girl fleetingly glance back at Lydia, but then right back down to the Count as if she couldn’t keep her gaze away long. “ I-I didn’t know it was an option, but I want to.” Lydia rubbed at her temples, and relented with a sigh.

“Alright. Alright.” She bit out but spoke loudly as if to assure herself of the matter and keep her conscious clear. “There will be a guard, and there are  _ cameras _ , and of course the deterrent..” Her voice dwindled to a mutter and she looked to the equally uncertain looking female security officer. Giving her an out. “Your certain your comfortable staying?”

“You don’t hav’ta Mary.” Wilson hissed from just outside the door but she shook her head and the count noted her name without turning his gaze away from the creature before him.. 

“It’s perfectly fine.” Little 'Mary' responded curtly her lips pressed together in a thin displeased line. ' _ I have so much to thank the woman's suffrage movement' _ . But Dracula’s thoughts were already drifting, he was staring at the flush of the girl before him, his hand kneading her thigh gently watching as her breath hitched and the air moistened with the scent of her arousal.

“Close the door please.” He muttered raggedly. Licking his lips as Belinda's pick rosy ones parted and she squirmed sweetly at his ministrations.

Wilson gave ‘Mary’ one last look before closing the door. And they were alone. They heard the mechanical click of the automatic lock fasten which seemed all the louder to those warm blooded in the room. The guard kept her eyes respectively low as the Count, still gloriously naked leaned into the girl from his kneeling position. His hands sliding up her thighs beneath the skirt, forcing her to lay back as he nuzzled her legs apart, his breath tickling between her thighs. The girl seemed to have forgotten where she was and that there was anyone in the room at all. The Count of course enjoyed the exhibitionism, all too aware of the sound of the guards heart rate increasing as did the girl before him. With that music as his encouragement he scooped the girls hips towards him so that she was practically off the seat, hunger was scorching him as he the girls skirt hiked up about her hips exposing pale white panties. He was working his way to the center of her sex, skimming his teeth along her thighs until he reached the cotton panties a low growl escaping, like a predatory purr. 

“Oh god.” She gasped her thighs squeezing together shyly around him, The count mumbled something his teeth pressing against her flesh. “Is is it going to hurt?” The girl asked suddenly, the first intelligent question out of her mouth. The count raised his head, and she gave a little shocked frightened noise, bereft of the heady sensuality that had been thickening her voice as he bared his crooked feral teeth, his eyes bleeding about the iris.

“Pain is a part of pleasure.” 

He held her gaze just long enough for her pleasure to blanch into fear, heady arousal into frightened regret. Then he buried his face into her thigh like a starving wolf falling on a wounded deer. She bucked hand clutching at his head, the guard shifted unsure whether or not to intervene, however the girls eyes rolled up, following are roll of her hips as she arched in a kind of wild convulsing ecstasy. The Count supped deeply at the juncture of her thighs, but seemed to pause, as if returning for air his own eyes dark with a kind of hedonistic brutal delight as the blood trickled down his chin and throat.

The girl bucked and gyrated, even the guard could smell the scent of her arousal and she had to swallow back her own instinctual reaction to strange mix of vulgar eroticism and horror, like milk and orange juice curdling in her guts yet holding her in a kind of dreadful fascination. He came up again for air breathing as sucking in air like a beast his eyes closed and then, to the guards mortification his eyes opened to look at her a kind of feral gleaming there. She had been so enraptured, she didn’t manage to look away. Their eyes met and he stared at her with a feral glee, and she realized in humiliation that she was deepening his pleasure and forced her gaze to move furtively away. 

He moved to return to the girls juncture but suddenly shuddered as if something was overcoming him. 

A grunt of frustration escaped him, the Count felt the leash tightening about his neck, attempting to choke him lest he break a barrier. It was right to, the girl would merely be faint at this point, but any more loss and she might need to be hospitalized. Still though he felt the rage of being denied and snarled attempting to push through when the keening began. He snarled and snapped standing and kicking away the ottoman, leaving the girl about to slide onto the floor in a heap. The security officer sprang into action as he snarled his rage. Clenching and unclenching his fists trying to prevent himself from lunging, his mouth still smeared with blood, which had drizzled into the hair of his chest. The security officer moved slowly, smartly, moving to join the girls side attempting modesty by brushing the girls skirt down. 

“Get out.” The count snapped, the security guard who had been privy to his bought of madness in the glass box, seen the glass begin to shatter knew well enough to take him seriously. Her mouth pressed together into a thin line of focus as she scooped her arm under the girls and got her somewhat on her feet. Belinda was still moaning, but was not completely unconscious. The guard could not keep the Count in her vision as she shuffled her and the girl towards the door, her hand moved to her radio ready, but it opened almost immediately, though only enough to allow the girl through it. Wilson taking Belinda's limps form into his arms easily. The guard caught Lydia’s pale and strained face in the room behind her holding her ipad. She was attempting a shaky smile of assurance to Lydia as the donor left her arms, clearing the door when it was just as viciously slammed shut. 

The security officer found herself caught between the closed door and the tall naked body of the Count, his metallic breath fanning against her neck, caging her with his body. 

\---

The door thudded and she heard Wilsons muffled cry behind it, but the count held the door closed without the least effort, his arms spaced far enough apart that she could flip to face him. 

He was a fearsome sight, his teeth bared, his chest blood smeared. She worked on calming her breath, looking at his lips rather than his eyes. She worked with dogs, specifically violent ones trying to rehabilitate them and this had left her with a kind of instinct that came to her aid now. Meeting the eyes of a dog was considered a challenge, a reason to  _ snap _ . But she sensed within him an effort of restraint, a creature trying to collect himself if only his instincts weren’t running wild. A creature, that if not unnecessarily provoked could be made tame again.

“I saw you looking.” He told her through his teeth. There was another solid thump against the back of the door, no doubt Wilson attempting to bust in the door which jerked her and she hissed, anger flashing in her eyes, but not at  _ him _ .  _ Wilson you fucking idiot _ . She wanted to snarl and instead she exhaled slowly choosing words carefully as she stared at his crooked bloody teeth. Images of him tearing into the creature on the gurney flashed through her mind but she blinked them away.

“I believe you looked first sir.” She countered quietly, unable to keep the shake from her voice. Dracula laughed and she winced again as another thump hit the door. “If you would allow me to radio to Wilson, perhaps you would care for a conversation before your... dessert?” She could tell he needed to gather himself, that he was just barely holding on, barely restraining himself. She flinched as he dipped in close to her little growls escaping him, breath blowing across her flesh. He was all skin teeth and blood.

“Do that.” He said then and without giving her more space only dipped his head to the side so that her hair was brushing his face and his breath fanned onto her shoulder. She swallowed and carefully raised her hand to the radio at her breast. There was another thump, though it might as well be a million miles away. The radio crackled as she depressed the button.

“Wil,” She was barely restraining her own anger, her Scottish accent thickening into something more noticeable as she hissed with some kind of restraint into the radio. “ _Give us five bloody minnuts or yeu’ll be wiping me off the floor ye cockscum_ _ git _ _._ ” She snarled then added. “Aeknowlege?” There were no more thuds upon the door. After a moment the radio crackled, reluctantly. 

‘Aeknowledged.’ A disgruntled Wilson replied. She might have sighed in relief, if she were not still trapped with a between the Counts arms, a low growls beside her ear, a creature she’d seen devour a woman's face, if it could have been called a woman. He seemed to suck a breath through his teeth she could hear his tongue moving as he tried to catch the flavor of her.

“Bravery or stupidity?” He asked “Is that Scotland I hear?” He added quizzically, rearing head to capture her face.

“Neither Sir, I’m doing my job.” Her accent was curbing to something more cultured, something more resembling British, she ignored his question about her origins, but not to be impolite. 

“Are you _ securing  _ me Mary?” he purred, her eyes flashed to him as he spoke her name, something like bold amusement there suddenly. Her name was not in fact Mary, though Wilson and others enjoyed calling her so, and it gave her some level of comfort that this creature was not infallible, just clever.

Dracula seem to sense the change, and having been hoping to unsettle he was disappointed by the quiet shift of confidence. He attempted to shift the power balance again, keep her from steady ground, like any predator instinctually digging at the soft spots.

“Did you like what you saw? You looked quite  _ fascinated _ .” He drawled in her ear, when she was quiet added. “There's no shame in it, you can tell me.”

“Its not  _ shame _ Sir. It was indecent, It did not seem respectful.” She relented carefully, even now feeling the swell of embarrassment and resisting the urge to chew her lip. She kept her eyes downcast trailing down his naked chest, his cock dangling shadowed and obscure from her perspective angle. Small blessings. Or large depending on how you looked at it.

“You are polite aren’t you?” He hummed as if this were not particularly a trait he admired and she hazarded a look at him. His eyes were returning to normal, like blood moving down a drain. His teeth perhaps less pointy somehow. She swallowed, attempting not to sound too hopeful.

“I try to be Sir.” She said tersely. Dracula sighed and to her relief his arms fell away.

He walked to the little alcove of candies and bottles, pulling out a bottle of water he unscrewed the cap and above the sink began haphazardly cleaning himself of the now dried and tacky blood which stained his chest. Clara (not 'Mary') closed her eyes and shifted as being able to move for the first time in hours. She took a shaky, more full breath. 

“You didn’t share the same feeling with your co-worker.” He noted wiping the cloth across his face and patting his chest dry. His nudity to Clara seemed apart of the furniture now. A normalcy in comparison to all abnormality she'd been witness to that day. 

“If I may be blunt sir.” She said, probably about to regret her words at the Counts affirmative glance. “Wilson just wants to fuck me, you could eat me.” The count crumpled the cloth and threw it into the sink, his skin scrubbed somewhat fresh, he pulled a random bottle from the cart and strode back across the room extending the bottle between them. Clara took it uncertainly, but he count held it fast she pulled drawing her gaze to his.

“Don’t be so sure I can’t do both.” He said and released the bottle. Clara flushed again and started unscrewing the cap of the bottle, if only for a distraction. “I doubt your fellows will share the same tact.” He continued. Thinking of Wilson’s sharp indolent gaze. The idea of him pacing outside the door in worry and anger was a satisfying one.

“Your intimidating Sir. I think you may be threatening their masculinity, you can’t threaten a woman's masculinity so I’d like to think we act a little more rationally.” She said, unable to help herself the tension of the room had lessened considerably. This caused a laugh and he watched as she raised the bottle to her lips taking a drink of the sweet fizzy drink. Something about how he watched her swallow made her feel dirty, like knowing someone has a foot fetish and rubbing your feet together in front of them. She swallowed quickly and biting her lip screwed back on the bottle lid, trying to keep her hand from shaking. 

“And your  _ not  _ intimidated by me?” He asked, curious if she’d lie or bluster. He was surprised when her eye managed to raise to his family.

“On the contrary sir I’d say your about the second most frightening thing I’ve ever seen.” She said it in a kind of stupid casual kind of way, not intending to catch his curiosity with that but she realized the mistake almost immediately, her eyes dropping again to the floor as his head cocked to the side.  _ Second most _ . She could almost hear him thinking, his predator pride snuffed. 

He reminded Clara of some of the animals she worked with, and felt the same kind of flopping tension in that moment as he gazed at her face. She worked with the dogs no one else wanted to. The ones which would be happy and wagging their tails one minute, and the next vicious brutal savages, their triggers like hairline fractures one only sees once they’ve snapped. She had a sense for them, the triggers, she could untangle them like knots in some cases, but some dogs were impossible. Too violent and unpredictable. Not because they were wounded or abused but because they  _ liked _ it. They liked snarling and snapping and the feeling of their teeth sinking in when you weren’t expecting it. She was almost certain which category the count lay in, and she sensed that she was skimming the fracture now, her comment ill placed and ill timed to catch his interest, to provoke him.

He looked at her a long moment, feeling her tension, enjoying it perhaps and noticing that at least in  _ this _ light she was not quite so plain as she looked before. She had a strange innocence to her exacerbated by youthful almost elfish features. Her hair a choppy soft natural ash blonde bob sharpening those traits and making them more sensual. Within her he sensed a curious dichotomy. She carried with her the weapons of war, but blushed at indecency, she was too honest, too polite. Traits which he’d always considered to be virtues of the weak and insipid, and yet she’d kept the door closed, faced him calmly, she managed humor despite her discomfort. She moved the way someone knows how to move around animals, around predators, from the softness of tone she used with downcast eyes, but knew when to switch her methods. Her rough hewn curses she threw at Wilson, savvy as any sailor making him back down. Had she been so polite with him, likely he’d have crashed in the door. 

That  _ and _ she’d told him in all honesty that he was only the  _ second  _ most terrifying thing she’d encountered. It was the last unforgivable sin. The unlucky girl had caught his interest despite her best efforts to avoid them. 

The moment passed. Clara was relieved to feel the moment pass, and yet uneasy. Feeling still that she’d made a terrible error she’d soon be paying for. The Count moved across the room to take a position on the lounge, he kicked his feet to rest on top of the ottoman which he’d kicked back into position after having made it skid across the room in his rage. 

“I think I’ll take my dessert now.” She ducked her head, perhaps  _ too _ obediently, but unable to help herself. She’s relieved to longer be the focus of his predatory interest.

“Yes Sir.” 

  
  



	5. Re-Breifed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The count enjoys his desserts.

* * *

She understands why the second meal he considered ' _the dessert_ '.  
With the girl he was famished, and she eager to participate, eager to be _wooed_. The male by the same token was cold reticent, he was a researcher, analytical type. The last she'd think to be capable of convincing to allow the Count to feed from him 'manually'. But she watched with fascination as he found the exact line of reasoning to do just that.

He was doing it for the sake of science! For the rare experience! He insisted flustered, that he was ' _not gay_ ', that unlike that other girl it wasn't some kind of fetish or anything. Clara had to keep her face straight to keep from laughing as the young man insisted he really wasn't _gay_ even as the Count assured him. ' _no of course not_ ' as he played with his hair and nuzzled coyly into his neck.

Desserts were for pleasure, for decadence. They satisfied a need beyond nourishment. The boy, a mouse, now idly batted did just for him. Provided entertainment. He drank slowly as his twitching victim fell into a torpor and began twitching and grumbling giving the distinct impression of being trapped in a nightmare.

  
A stark difference between the panting pleasurable moans of the first. After the heightened tension and adrenaline it was difficult to for Clara to restrain her laughter. She managed to bite her lip admirably through the event, though she couldn't help but wonder if a part of the show was for ' _her_ ' amusement as well. Just as in a way the first might have been.  
She discounted that thought. Not the sense that the Count would go so far as to ' _manipulate_ ' her, that was clearly a tactic, if not _fact_. Rather she discarded the sense that she was of an import to the Count beyond shallow amusement. Like the student laying back he was eager to see her twitch.

The Count was, luckily for her and the boy, easily reigned in afterwards, only a trickle of blood at each corner of his mouth quickly licked away. A quick transition between beast and man in comparison to the last. Wilson helped the young man out once she gave the go-ahead, the man was quick to wake, looking shaky and disturbed.

  
"No, no!" He jerked when seeing the Count with pure horror and hatred in his eyes. Wilson had to tighten his hold on him. Like a cat flicking his tail, their Vampire eased back into the lounge with his arms outspread. A satisfied smile as he cleaned the blood from the corners of his lips.

  
His legs parted in a wide 'manspread' put his more _human_ parts on clear display, and Clara couldn't help but see. He was uncircumcised and certainly not a size to be ashamed of falling into the 'above average' category and surrounded by a thick of wild black thick hair which similarly graced the thicket on his chest.  
She looked away quickly again focusing on holding the door out of the way for Wilson.

  
In regards to the cock however Clara found she was at least a little relieved that neither feeding events had exactly 'excited him'. It was definitely one of those things you notice absently but rather don't want to admit you've noticed or that your somehow re-assured by it. But it did reassure her. Somehow sliding home the idea that he was rather more animal than man when he fed, and though sadistic at times, perhaps it was the sadism of a great cat, overfed and needing the stimulation to keep the boredom at bay.

Clara knew animals. Worked with animals. This had been an advantage barely twenty minutes prior when the Count had been encouraged to stop feeding via the deterrent and had a certain difficulty to regain himself afterwards. She'd known how to move and how to act, or at least she thought she did. Sometimes feeling competent in a job was enough to make you so. In the case of Dracula, she suspected that much like working with animals prone to vicious outbursts. Self-doubt could be disastrous, inviting attack, but on the other hand excessive aggression was just as likely to cause violence.

  
She was thinking of Wilson's bluster with some judgment.

"The thing men do for science." The Count sighed, bringing Clara back to the foray of the present. Observing him more shyly now that he wasn't occupied. He seemed completely at ease, his eyes dancing in wicked satisfaction seeing his dessert being carted away whimpering at every step. Wilson filled the doorway, having handed the boy off to Jesse or perhaps Warsaw. Looking ill-tempered and surly he filled the doorway and aggressively tossed a bundle of clothing onto the lounge.

"Get dressed." He snapped, Clara could've slapped him. The big galoot was just asking for trouble, his testosterone was as thick as molasses in the room, provoking challenge.

"I think I'd rather let things settle, big meal and all." He said, patting his stomach nonchalantly.  
He was egging him on, provoking him further. Wilson was a good shot but a dolt, and he'd happily dance for the Count if allowed. Wilson stepped forward ready to flex his idiocy.

"I've got this." She caught him across the chest, stalling his advancement. Wilson looked down at her, anger losing its edge to uncertainty as he saw the sharp look in her eye.

"The boss wants him." He explained and paused. "And you." Clara acknowledged that, keeping her face blank. Wilson left them in the room at her discretion, and she moved to the door easing it mostly shut for privacy.

  
She was wondering how badly she'd fucked up the situation if Dr. VanHelsing already wanted to speak with her. She'd probably had been watching the entire encounter live. How it must have looked to her? Clara getting pinned to the wall like a fly, neither moving to her weapon or fighting? Perhaps she'd seemed complacent, Inviting attack? However it could be interpret it she was certain she'd taken the correct forms of action. As much as she might disappoint Baldwin by losing this job, she'd defend herself on that...  
"Penny for your thoughts?" She turned back from easing the door closed to see The Count had begun to dress. He was wearing socks boxers and beginning to button his shirt. She'd gotten used to seeing him naked, now dressing reminded her of the indecency.  
"Just working on my CV sir." She said absently in half-hearted amusement considering the likely probability that Dr. VanHelsing would be dismissing her from service after today. The count stepped into his trousers.

"CV...?" He seemed to taste the word, as if uncertain of where to place it. He was packing his cock in and buttoning himself up.

"It's a document that lists your skills, previous employment and education. You give them out to employers in hopes they'll take you on." Clara thoughtfully picked up the jacket which remained to be worn, and she held it open to him, inviting him to slip his arms inside.  
He moved to shrug into the jacket as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She smoothed the suit down his shoulders absently from behind.

"Leaving so soon?" He said in a kind of overly plaintive disappointed tone, Clara could have laughed he was perhaps as sincere as a wolf is to hear the rabbit changing burrows. "And I thought we were just becoming familiar." His tone changed to a velvety seriousness. She wouldn't have been able to move in time when she sensed the shift. One moment he was facing away from her, the next his hand was about her wrist pulling it down.  
The way he took her arm was like that of a child catching a small animal, either unaware or totally unconcerned to the other animals discomfort, tugging on tails and ears with gleeful delight and amusement. Except that he was almost analytical in his gaze, detached and cool.

"I doubt Dr. VanHelsing feels familiarity an appropriate trait in who she assigns to you." It was hard not to stare at the thick pointed nails. A pink scar peeked from her upper forearm and he slide up the sleeve which such an intimacy she might have blushed. The scar was a jagged edged thing of something that had scarred and opened several times before healing creating thick impressions in the skin, Dracula drew his thumb over the numb tissue curiously.  
The silence was uncomfortable and filled with too much uncertainty, so she filled it hesitantly.

"That was when I got familiar with one of the hounds I was working with," She told him honestly, imagining it might catch his interest.

"What happened to the dog?" He had a face of a man where too much could be interpreted in his wicked dark eyes, the soft lines of his cheeks and forehead, and the full mouth.

"He couldn't be re-socialized, so he got put down."

"So you have a habit of working with vicious animals?" A smirk touched his mouth, Clara resolutely answered as frankly as possible.

"If no one works with them, they get put down." Clara was conscious of the possibility to be misinterpreted so she kept her expression and body language as passive as possible.

"And do you do it yourself, 'put them down' that is?" He was looking at her as if she were a curious puzzle, and he was finding all the pieces. Unfortunately usually after you finished a puzzle you'd take it all apart again, putting it in a box. The Count liked putting things in boxes.

"The shelter administers the drug, but I stay with them until the end, so they aren't alone." She loved her dogs, even the worst, she rarely spoke of it and the emotion was clear in her voice.

"And you mourn for them, don't you? Even when they've hurt you?" His voice was mocking, pitched like coddling a child who wept over sad little boo boo's. His thumb stroked the scar almost absently just as it had stroked the thigh of the girl and the boys neck before he'd fed.  
Her options were to get riled up or be hurt, she chose the third option, answering honestly, and not falling prey to either emotion.

"You can't always help to become invested, but in the end it's often the kindest thing. They can't be trusted to live with others. But they can never live without them either..." She gathered her courage to gently lay her hand on top of his at the scar. His skin surprisingly warm and vital, It caught his attention as it was meant to. Ever so gently she moved in such a way to encourage him to release her arm as she spoke. "If you are quite ready Sir, I believe the Doctor is waiting." She merely invited him to follow the stroke of her hand, to her surprise and relief his followed, coaxed it seemed by the touch.

"Lead the way little Mary." He murmured, and she might have smiled at the mistaken name, but there was a roughness to his voice, an underlying tension she didn't want to see snap.

"Very well Sir."

* * *

  
They were instructed to wait outside the door while Dr. VanHelsing and the Count held their meeting. There were whispers of a lawsuit travelling down the halls like wildfire. The golden haired student had been... 'rubbed raw' by the ordeal apparently. The attention of her three other fellows was an uncomfortable thing.

"So did he get a hard on while sucken on em?" Jesse asked, his Spanish accent faint.

"You weren't watching the video?" She replied archly, knowing exactly how to deal with these kinds of questions.

"You had a better view, did he go down on that chick? She was trembling when she came out." Warsaw leered.

"Lay off! Bad enough she had to be in there at all." Wilson growled, and Clara flashed in anger.

"I wouldn't have been there if someone hadn't drawn his bloody attention!" She hissed. "Now if your all so interested in his cock ask you can feel free to ask him to shove it up yer asses." Wilson had the decency to look upset at her accusation.

"Hey don't sweat it Mary, were just having a laugh." Warsaw was said in his heavy British accent, pouting like a child being scolded.

"We can have a laugh about you too, but it would only be an about two inches worth. Fucking git." The men broke out into bawdy laughter and the matter was resolved.  
The door opened suddenly.  
Lydia Bluxhom looking tired and frazzled immediately looked to Clara and addressed her directly.

"Dr. Helsing will see you now Mrs. Sinclair." Clara tried to keep her face blank in front of the boys, but they could sense the tension and all looked about themselves guilty. Whatever they'd decided, she'd have to face it either way. Her head held high she entered through the door held by Mrs. Bloxham.

* * *

  
"Hello Mrs. Sinclair, Please take a seat." Her cool voice carried down the large office. It was a tasteful but cold feeling room, without warmth of character. A desk, two arm chairs and a few lining the walls and behind the desk a great t.v screen now blank. There were no windows. ' _He_ ' was sitting, reclining in one armchair before the great desk, the other was held open for her.  
Clara had seen Dr. Van Helsing of course, but they'd never formally met before, she'd been assigned by Baldwin only a week ago. Clara thought she looked like a strict woman, something about her was particularly military in essence and demanding of a certain respect. Clara acknowledged her with the tip of her head before she took a seat.

"Tell me, Mrs. Sinclair, do you prefer to go by 'Mary'? I almost didn't know who the Count was speaking about until Lydia informed me that the other men refer to you as such as well." It sounded as if Agatha was attempting a gentle prelude, small talk, however she could not have picked a worse topic for Clara.

"The boys tend to think themselves funny ma'am." She paused hoping Agatha would catch it, but she could see from her blank expression she didn't so, chewing her lip gently she shifted uncomfortably and just ripped the band aid off rather than dance around it. "That is, Virgin Mary mum, or 'lamb' when they have a death wish." She said attempting humour to ease the awkwardness. The count gave a deep chuckle, and she felt his eyes on her though refused to look.

"That would explain things." The count gave a deep chuckle, and she felt his eyes on her though refused to look. Clara flushed keeping her eyes on Agatha, who looked contrite.

"Virtue and restraint are certainly nothing to turn your nose at." She said as if by compliment but gave the Count a long steady look, and it gave Clara the impression of sitting between two very old friends with inside jokes only privy to them. Not eager to continue enduring this awkward stalemate Clara cleared her throat.

"I want to apologize ma'am if you felt any of my actions inappropriate, believe I handled the situation as appropriately as I could have given the circumstances." It felt strange talking about him while he was in the room, but she wasn't quite sure how else to go on defending herself. Dr. Helsing looked confused and Clara immediately sensed a misstep on her part.

"Rest assured Mrs Sinclair I did not call you in here to reprimand any actions. Quite the contrary I believed you performed well under the circumstances." She said giving the Count another aloof sort of squint which carried both superiority and disdain. The Count, she peeked, seemed to be looking at his nails, quite innocent. "However the Count has requested that you be placed in a... superior position to your companions and that the majority of tasks which can be security be performed singularly be undertaken by you."

"I see." Clara fell silent processing the request. Wilson was currently her superior, or at least had naturally assumed that position, she'd been working with this crew on and off for several months under Baldwins direction. There was a risk that her change of status, of favouritism might cause issues, men needed the hierarchy, thrived on it. Sudden disruption was always unwelcome.

"You are not requested to accept this request, in fact I could potentially use you for other matters." Agatha was saying quietly.

"Are you trying to steal my girl?" This comment was disturbing enough that Clara flashed him a look out of the corner of her eye to observe him. The possessive term, she collected by the glance, was one of a lord over a servant. Not jealousy or anything else more... worrysome. Clara deemed it therefore acceptable, and she looked away quickly before he might catch the sneaking glance.  
"Anyone with skills to handle you, is an asset worth having at hand." Agatha retorted curtly. While they bickered she could continue considering.  
Clara was thinking about how differently the morning could have gone if it had been Wilson in the room between his feeds. The Count agitated and looking for blood in more than one way. A wild animal that's food had been taken from its mouth... No doubt the morning would have gone quite differently. Clara considered for a moment to that she might be acting arrogantly, who was she to say she was best? No one really, perhaps this too was a play of the counts? She could admit arrogance, willingly... but she couldn't admit that she really did believe it wouldn't have gone poorly with Wilson. Arrogant but still the best for the job? Clara decided while the two exchanged a few retorts like white noise to her thinking.

"I accept." She said, then she addressed the Count. "I will take the responsibility." She said facing him letting him see she wasn't avoiding him for fear or any other nonsense. She could and would look at him, when it suited her, his gaze could not make her shy away. Sometimes it was important to make eye contact with a dog, just to let it know you were equal to it.  
The Counts pleasure was plain, but it was censored, and ever so slightly he tipped his head to her.

"Count, Lydia will take you to the front to take care of your discharge paperwork." Agatha said curtly, dismissing him with a nod, and he rose without ceremony but with plenty of swagger. Clara wasn't expecting his hand to land on her shoulder, and she started slightly. His smile was innocent, but the effect was clear, 'though you may brave to look me in the face, I can still catch you when your not looking...' Clara couldn't be fooled by feigned innocence, she was queen of it.

"See you soon." He said with a smile and Clara shivered once his hand had left her shoulder. The door shutting him out left the room slightly more empty, but far more breathable, like some of the air had been let back in at his departure.

"He has that effect on people."

"What I gathered from orientation is that he also has the effect of making people dead." Clara said feeling less tied up now that the Count was no longer in the room and speaking more frankly.

"There are certainly risks that we cannot rule out despite our best effort. That is why I wanted to speak to you alone, you understand that the Count's attention is no favour? Clara nodded, she'd endured the orientation of the Count's recorded history, every gore soaked detail that could be found anyways. It was not something so easily dismissed or forgotten. "And you are aware that his favour rarely ends with anything else then the extinguished life of the one who has been so unlucky to catch his attention?" Again Clara nodded and Agatha frowned spreading her hands.

"Then tell me why? Do you find yourself taken with his charms? There are few other reasons one could see to accept such risk." Clara sighed.

"It's not that ma'am, though I can see why others could..." She shook her head trying to keep to her point. "I didn't like the idea at first. It will alienate me from the others, but then I considered how differently this morning might have gone if Wilson had been in the room and..." She paused. "I'm not disparaging Wilson Sir, but he lacks a certain tact." Agatha laughed, cutting her off.

"He lacks the kind of instinct of a sensible woman I think you mean." She said, and Clara found herself sharing a smile with the cold woman beyond the desk.

"Perhaps, ma'am. Which is why I accepted. I suspect even if I was removed he'd quickly find another to occupy his interest, perhaps someone with less... sensibility." She explained her thoughts carefully.

"That is very noble of you. And I believe your assessment correct. The Count is happy to create bloodshed at the slightest invitation. You carry yourself well, you certainly have better sense then I. I can't seem to help but provoke him." with an almost distant expression. as if remembering something from long ago, she quickly shook herself from whatever feeling or memory had grasped her and clearing her throat and stood. "I wish you luck Clara Sinclair." She stood outstretching her hand and Clara rose to meet her hand. Taking it in a firm grip of respect, noting how cool it was but brushing it aside from her thoughts. a note made and then a note forgotten.

"Thank you ma'am."

"Take care Clara." She said with a sincere look in her eyes and dismissed her.

* * *

  
_30 MINUTES PREVIOUS_

  
"I've seen you've had quite a busy day." Agatha said as soon as he entered. "We are only dealing with two lawsuits from individuals who donated."

"Two! I rather thought the first one enjoyed herself." He said, looking a little put out.

"Perhaps you are not aware, but the modern woman now has the capability if not the right to withdraw her consent at any time, especially after the fact." Agatha said looking somewhat amused rather than irked. "But let us discuss the matter of the living dead. Please describe to me what encountered. Lydia has made notes, but of course notes are not sufficient."  
So he began. He did quite enjoy the sound of his own voice enough to do so.

They discussed the queer effect the living dead blood had on him, the peculiar rage, even watching the video which was taken during the episode. The count watched that with particular fascination on the large screen behind Agatha's desk. When Agatha was satisfied by her cross-examination she cleared her throat.

"Now these other matters." She muttered, finishing her review of the notes. Another video filled the screen, he sat forward in some interest as the video sped to show his interaction with 'Mary' while they were alone. He grinned until the screen froze on the scene of him pinning her to the wall and Agatha wheeled back to face them looking quite unimpressed.

"Don't stop, it's just getting good!" He exclaimed disappointed.

"You have enjoyed testing our boundaries today Count. Tell me how has it felt?" His mouth twitched. "It can become more unpleasant should I so choose." She reminded him narrowly.

"I don't think that will be necessary Agatha." He assured her playing nice. "However you couldn't imagine I wouldn't test them myself."

"Of course not, I merely want to reassure you that should those boundaries be crossed you will find the results most unpleasant."

"Somehow I believe you."

"Good." She said and the screen fell to black, "As now we come to the question of your release, I shall refresh those boundaries: You are being traced, which will find you no matter where you go. You are not to leave England, unless under express order. The pain will increase should you linger or pursue in actions we deem impolite and which break our contractual arrangement. Linger too long and splinters will be released into your heart as effective as any stake. You will report here regularly and stay within contact, you will play host to a security detail and one or two such persons will remain with you at all times. We have established them within your home and will act within rotating shifts. They have their own trackers and should the distance between you and any one of them you will find yourself with something stronger than heartburn." She said, taking a breath after her long-winded but quite extensive threat. Not that she need it for actual breath, only for speaking, as the voice box required air to pass through it to form sounds. She expected some kind of rebuke from but found him surprisingly quiet. An unsettling sign in the least, her eyes were narrowed.

"Now... This girl. What is your interest in her?" She asked curtly, referring to the video with its image emblazoned on the screen.

"Jealous Aggie?" He crooned and shrugged, crossing his legs. "She's an idle occupation. I find her curious."

"What about her is so curious?" Agatha was unable to stop herself from asking questions, they were the air she breathed.  
"She's a dichotomy. She handled herself quite well actually." He said referring to the video.

"I agree, but what if I was to say that I disagree with fostering this curiosity and would have her removed for her own safety?" The count made a face.

"Come now Agatha, I'm a man of many interests, many desires. I have expensive tastes. If not her, I'm quite sure I could find another, less well armed individual to feed my curiosities." He said coolly, the threat clear enough. Agatha sighed and sat back. Her reach of him only extended so far, and she knew it. Was it not better that it be this woman, then someone far more naive? No, better she know how to use a crossbow and know her enemy. Though Agatha would not make that decision herself.

"We shall ask her then, what it is she desires. Lydia, please bring in... " she glanced at her page. "Clara." The count frowned.

"Uh, I believe she goes by Mary actually." Before Agatha could argue Lydia cleared her throat.

"The men regularly call her Mary ma'am, not to sure why." The Count and Agatha exchanged a look. She noted he looked a little put out by that fact.  
Clara entered the room. Small but solid enough, she looked at Agatha with a respectful kind of nod, Agatha noted while she assessed the Counts position upon entering the room she did not at all address him or register his existence. Not even to sneak glances. Baldwin had highly recommended the girl, now she could begin to see why. Agatha considered with a pang that this choice was not an easy one. It was one she'd made a very long time ago in a nunnery herself. To face a monster or turn away. It had cost her sisters lives... and her own. She hoped this young woman would know a different path. But it was not task to choose for Clara, that was between her and her god.

* * *

  
Dawn was coming. He stood outside to greet her as she rose. The wind whipped him on that great cliff of Carfax Abby as he watched, loosing himself in thought. Zoe filled his and he swore she was at his side as the morning stretched from pink to orange. "She's beautiful Zoe," He said, and he gazed at her so intently his eyes stung, but still he could not look away as the sun rose.

"It is Sir." but it was not Zoe's voice at his side, and he broke away, like breaking from a spell blinking the stinging light from his eyes to see the lamb there. She mistook his look for anger, perhaps because she appeared reticent, like a tactful servant, dipping her head ever so slightly.  
He liked that, it reminded him somehow of a time long ago... and it was not feigned, she had real caution, real respect, it was quite like that respect in the old days not only earned but demanded. A trait usually reserved for insipid cowards seemed almost, noble on her countenance. For there was such a thing as a noble slave, creatures who not only accepted their weakness but bore it with elegance and without shame.

"Forgive me, I didn't mean to disturb you sir." She had joined his side some ten minutes ago with the rising dawn, she felt almost embarrassed to have broken him away. He'd been quite beautiful somehow his face bathed in light his breath steaming in the air as his palms greeted her outstretched. He'd looked alive, something raw and beautiful marking him as distinct.

"Its fine." He said, almost harshly but turned back to the light for a last look. Clara opened her mouth to apologize again but it fell away, instead she held up the keys to the car shed been given.

"The car is waiting. Shall we return to your flat?" As he looked at her she saw the vivid hues of his eyes, not black as they always seemed but actually a mix blue and hazel about the iris, like a chimera the colours bleeding into one another.

"Tell me lamb, have you been to the London Zoo?"


	6. Its a zoo out there

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dracula and his new security team become better acquainted. The Count drops in on Agatha unannounced.

* * *

She had Jesse driving. Wilson crammed unhappily in the passenger seat while Warsaw was sent to finish putting their new ‘residence’ in order. Dracula took the center seat, looking comfortably chauffeured and leaving Clara to a seat at his side. She caught Jesse and Wilson's looks in the mirror as she dipped her head into the car.

“Quite a snug fit.” The Count said coolly, knowing very well he had the entire seat worth of space. She considered a tactful option.

“Jesse might take the space more comfortably if space is an issue Sir, I could always drive-” It was a jab at Jesse’s height which made Wilson snort. The Count shifted over amicably.

“Snug but workable.” He said changing his tune, Clara suppressed a smile as she slid into the seat. 

“I’m glad you think so Sir. Jesse, you know where to go.” She said, exchanging a glance with him through the mirror, hoping he understood there were no hard feelings.

“You got it _la Tia_.” He said, la tia, being ‘aunty’, a sign of understanding or forgiveness on his part. Dracula sat forward in his seat eyes locked on Jesse and as he leaned forward, clasping the headrest behind Wilson's head and Dracula's his knee knocked Clara's leg. Undoubtedly every motion was planned and executed to create maximum discomfort for everyone trapped inside the tin can of a car.

“That language is Spanish yes?” Jesse’s face remained blank as they pulled out of the drive. Clara was aware they were in for a long drive. “A language I've yet to acquire... What did you call her?” He asked.

Clara answered, gently resting her hand on the counts outstretched arm which was on Jesse’s seat, his claws drumming the fabric near his shoulder. She disliked touching him, it invited reciprocation, but like a child that was continuing to flail his arms about she felt the need to censor his movements.

“He called me ‘Aunty’.” He dropped back at her beckoning, managing to place his arm in her lap as if she were the one to put it there, her hand still resting on the forearm. _God this is going to be a long trip_.

“Quite a little family aren’t you?” He said, smiling as if charmed, his hand on Clara’s leg. 

“More than that, in our line of work you’ve got to be ready to kill for each other.” Wilson said with a suggestive glare through the mirror.

“No doubt. You two I can definitely see, but what about sweet little aunt Mary here? Are _you_ a killer?” Always teasing and taunting, she would adapt given enough time, she was preoccupied with the discomfort of the weight of his arm on her lap and was going over the best way to remove it. Wilson stepped up to defend her.

“Goes by Bloody Mary too mate. Dinna let the face fool ya Count, she may be innocent in bed, but not by body count.” He said shooting her a wink. From Wilson those sentiments were almost heartfelt charm. She took the opportunity to move the Counts hand off her lap so she could reach forward to pat the big mans arm.

“Perhaps we can compare notches sometime.” Dracula said in a low voice, Wilson only laughed, his bawdy big man laugh.

“Good luck her lips are closed tighter than her legs.” Clara made an offended noise at the back of her throat and still leaning forward she slapped him upside the head, but Jesse and him were both laughing. 

“Don’t hold it against them Sir. They are an inbred lot.” She said apologetically as she sat back with a heavy sigh.

Yes, it would be a very long drive, Four hour trip to London then a skip back to Leeds would be another two at _least_ to arrive at his residence there. She was already wondering if they’d make it.

* * *

The boys were all cursing by the time they reached the lot of the zoo, she’d not allowed them to smoke and they were all itching for their nicotine habit. Clara was equally relieved to no longer be restrained to the confines, the count was big enough to fill a room without leaving space to breath, never mind a car. The count stepped out eyes already fastened on the structure before them.

“Can you hear them?” He murmured voice low and suggestive. Clara held her breath and listened, but only heard the rush of the city around her, a breeze carried a strong wet chill of fall. She shook her head and the Count sighed as if just remembering her duller senses. She was about to move to the trunk to retrieve her bag when he stopped her by her arm. 

“ _Listen_.” He commanded and raised his hand up as if waiting to catch something in the wind.

Then in the distance over the London squall came the low cry on the wind. It strengthened becoming a long strange howl the Count raising his hand like a conductor. Clara sucked in a breath, unable to keep the surprise from her features. Hair rose on the back of her neck as the noise grew louder

Lions.

Roaring eerily, their cries mingled with what was perhaps the cry of other carnivores keening queerly in the air. The Count bought his hand down and like magic the cries died again. Even Jesse and Wilson stopped, cigarettes smoldering between their lips, the air suddenly too still in the silence. Jesse broke it by muttered something that sounded vaguely like a prayer under his breath in his own language. 

“Fucking creepy.” Wilson spat in similar sentiment before drawing his fag back to his lips for a puff. Clara didn’t know what to say. What _do_ you say to a man that can wave his hand and call lions to him on the wind? So she said nothing and went to the trunk.

She'd opted for more civilian attire before she left and she tugged her coat closer to her to brace against the chill breeze and twisted a baseball cap over her shaggy blonde mop of hair, twisting it backwards. Her backpack was in the trunk, a small thing which carried her bare essentials as well as a few key items for the Count she would keep handy. She had a stake tucked her or there on her persons, which made her feel absolutely ridiculous though it was merely a precaution. Her pager and phone on her to keep her in touch with the boys, including the ear piece. She fiddled with the Drake institute pin on her breast, keeping it centered before she popped the earpiece in giving it a tap. 

“Yow! You fuckin mind?” Wilson snapped. Rubbing his head.

“Just checking.” She said innocently and turned to the Count. He was already halfway across the parking lot. “Shit.” She snapped and glared at the two men absolutely oblivious. She took off after him. He was speaking to the ticket clerk.

“Ah, here she is.” Clara stepped between them the middle aged overweight woman behind the counter looked quite bored.

“Card or cash?” The clerk was biting back yawn, she was an overweight woman with a ruddy complexion. 

“Yes, how foolish of me to forget my wallet.” He chuckled. Clara offered him a tense smile as she pulled out her own wallet, taking out her card, compliments of Lydia as well, offering it to the clerk.

“Dads can be so forgetful.” She told the lady rolling her eyes. The woman hardly looked up as she swiped the card and passed them their wrist switches.

He seemed to want to read every placard, every board they came across. Clara was used to it, long hours following someone around that is. She had mastered being alert and silent, and did it all while feeling bored. They’d made their way meticulously through the park and they were now going through the exhibits and showcases.

He stopped before an ancient taxidermy of a lion.

“Quite an idea, stuffing… never thought of that.” He muttered and Clara pretended not to hear him. She could last for quite awhile, but the day had stretched on, her legs were aching as much as marching for hours would. The boys had already had lunch. She could continue for hours without complaint though her body was sore and plaintive, but her stomach could her even when her mouth wouldn’t.

It growled. Low reverberation bubbling through her belly, a physical betrayal. 

“My it _is_ lifelike.” He commented, still looking at the stuffed lion replica, Clara flushed.

“Hunger is something to satisfy not deny.” He told her like he was sharing a wicked secret.

“Duty precedes satisfaction for some us Sir…” she cleared her throat however,” But If your offering I wouldn’t refuse the break.” 

“Who am I to refuse satisfaction?” The idea of stopping for lunch was appealing enough to lift her spirits some.

* * *

They walked past the lion enclosure, the day had passed noon and was stretching towards the evening. There was a zookeeper within the edge of the lion enclosure, the big cats lolling in the sun taking no notice of him. 

When Dracula drew to the railing the cats began to stir. Clara sensed the shift, saw his face change to one of focus, and her hair rose in warning as the big cats began to stir.

“Sir!” She hissed, dread rising in her, she joined his side following his eyes down. The caretaker had not noticed the lions stirring. Their sudden intense focus.

“Shh, their hunting.”

“Sir! Stop this right now.” She moved to release her weapon but he grappled her and held her still. 

“Shhh, shh _watch_!” Unable to move she did the only thing she could

“LOOKOUT!” she cried to the caretaker below, hoping to warn him. The man looked up to see the lions stirring. 

“You know I once took wolves to a nunnery?” The Count told her in a near illicit whisper, holding her arms tight around her like a lover, his cheek tucked against hers. 

“Why are you doing this?” She demanded.

“To see if I can.” He told her. “Don’t hold it against me, I just need to see how far my leash goes..”She jerked against his grasp, she needed to activate her earpiece or do something….

But it was too late. The lions had circled. She could feel his excitement, feel his focus through his grip on her body. 

The keeper cried out.

“No!” She flinched before she could see the lion lunge, her eyes squeezed shut, a feeling of hopeless impotence filling her.

But Dracula jerked suddenly. His grip on her faltering. She took the chance, striking a blow to his sternum with her elbow, driving him backwards. She turned, readying her stake form within her sleeve. A sleek dagger like thin which was meant to slide through the ribs. She’d been trained to use it just so. Dracula’s expression made her stop. He clutched at his chest in a pained frustrated way giving a cry of frustration. She stepped to the side as he slammed against the railing in a fit of anger. Clara looked into the enclosure. The lions had dispersed, looking confused, the keeper nowhere in sight. A flood of relief coursed through her leaving her shaking. 

No blood. No guts. _Fucking hell_. She clutched the railing shaking faintly from the adrenaline.

“You _can’t_ blame me for trying.” He’d collected his anger back in, smoothing his hair back and flashing his teeth at her in a smile. His brows raised as he noticed the stake in her hand. “Were you about to stake me?” incredulous amusement.

“Can’t blame me for trying.” She spat back and placing the stake back up her sleeve began to walk away. The day suddenly overcast a frigid damp chill bringing the threat of rain as if soured by Dracula’s very mood. He called out after from behind, shouting at her retreating form. 

“Don’t be angry, _Mary_!” He called almost plaintively behind her but she didn’t stop. “You can’t go far without me, the _deterrent_ Mary!” He called as if to remind her.

“I hope it stakes ya, _yeh bastard_.” She muttered accent congealing thick on her tongue as her temper rose. Suddenly he was at her shoulder not even looking winded or rushed in the slightest. Simply suddenly in step with her as if he’d been there the entire time.

“No one said I’d make it easy for you. You’ve don’t quite well so far!” He was laughing, easily keeping pace with her hurried and angry steps much to her frustration. She knew she couldn’t outrun him so she came to a dead stop, turning on him.

“Listen here, I’ll play your bloody games, I’ll take the bloody _pet-names_ , I’ll say my bloody ‘ _yes Sirs_ ’. But you _mark these words,_ ” She hissed up at him. “Act the beast with me and I’ll put my boot to you like one!” She did not wait for his comment but tapped her earpiece. “Jesse, start the car, we're going.” He was at her side looking almost reticent, no wait, mostly he looked amused, she spoke from the side of her mouth at him. “You act a gentleman and I’ll act the serf, otherwise you can find a new mouse to bat between your paws.”

 _“Damn la tia-.”_ jesse came through over the earpiece forgetting to tap it off. She did so now before she could hear the boys' laughter.

“Very well.” She almost stopped in place turning to look at him and slowing her pace. By his expression he seemed perfectly serious.

“What?” She snapped.

“You heard me. I shall act as a gentleman within your company, under the condition you act as you have been prior to this unfortunate debacle.” He didn’t need her approval to seal the bargain, she’d offered it after all so Clara frowned, uncertain how to feel about it as they made their way back to the vehicle. 

She was way overtime already, any time away from the count was sure to be heavenly, if only it was sooner rather than later. It was a long drive back to Leeds...

* * *

The longest bloody day of her life. 

In the few weeks that Dracula had been in a relative coma they had outfitted his mansion to suit the needs of two four man crew

 _“In my day animals were relegated to the stables.”_ Dracula had been very unhappy to see the mess his house had become, a veritable barracks as the men had settled in quite comfortably in his absence.

Dane the team leader had taken over. _Not my shift, not my problem_ . Clara had thought. She was _off_. And god graced she was grateful for that. She was investigating the local dog shelters, dropping by a few to chat with the volunteers behind desk, filling out volunteer forms. Then she dealt with the little matter of her things. Her items in storage, her duffle bag. 

Then the liquor and grocery store, she’d promised the lads beer. No doubt they’d drank whatever was available already. 

She was swearing and aching from walking all day, hungry and hoping long and hard for a respite upon returning. The front door stretched up ominously before her and she began to free her hand of bags in order to get the door open… which is when she started hearing the noise.

Yelling. _Squeaking_?

_Shit._

She dropped her bags, and twisted the handle, wrenching the door handle open with her hand reaching for her stake. 

Ready for a battle she pushed the door open, but was absolutely unprepared on what she saw before her.

The men were dancing, or _running_ , stomping, _crying_ out in terror as _rats_ flooded out of vents and seemingly from every nook and cranny. One ran by her feet as she opened the door scampering excitedly into the room. The men were stomping and bellowing _stabbing_ the little creatures which were crawling all over them. _What the fuck_. 

Jesse was brandishing a cleaver, sweat covering his brow as the critters assaulted him. Dane had crawled up a shelf and was kicking the little beasts off as they crawled up. Wilson was roaring as he stomped crunching their little skulls. A mass of rats swelled up on the floor and in horror she realized as the mass swelled that there was a man buried beneath a mass of furry bodies. 

Wilson had seen her and bellowed suddenly.

“Get the bloody flamethrower!”

And then she heard the laughter of wicked delight.

“DRACULA!” She shouted and he leaned over the railing having been observing the wretches below, like a king lording over his kingdom. 

“I agreed to be a gentleman to you, not to them!” He called down laughing.

That was when she realized that there was no protocol capable of preparing someone for this job. 

* * *

“You're trying to avoid me.” He’d had Lydia open the door for him. Insisting on _this_ lab. _Her lab_. He’d deduced. 

Agatha Vanhelsing straightened up from where she had been peering into slides below the microscope. She was experimenting with the pathogen, using fresh blood samples and seeing how it corrupted when he’d come in. 

“Sorry Mum.” Lydia said, giving her wide eyed exasperated look which told Agatha everything. 

Dracula ran his hand down the white coat lapel he wore holding it up for inspection.

“It suits me don’t you think? The nurses find it quite flattering on me.” Agatha kept her arms crossed.

“Might be a little small actually.” _really?_ Dracula thought, perturbed that he might have missed such a thing and checked the seam at his shoulder, a good indication. It looked quite alright to him. “I can’t imagine your ego fitting the traditional sizes.” Agatha was teasing him, or mocking.

“I’ve come here to _work_ , and you can’t keep your little witticisms to yourself.

“You can leave us Lydia, the security team may wait outside as well.” If the last few days were any indication he had at least Clara in his shadow. Agatha had to replace two of the second shift after the Counts little ‘rat’ escapade and the others were still in a mood. Only Clara seemed resilient, or perhaps simply immune to the Counts pranks. 

Agatha returned to her work. She felt him behind her sidling close, body not quite touching and she jerked back up to see him over her shoulder leaning down.

“Do you mind?” She snapped.

“Not at all,” he said, smiling and inserting his arm down, ushering her out of her seat so he could take her place. Agatha grumbled but moved out of the way.

“The lab you have been provided was surely enough for you to do whatever you wished.” She grumbled but knew that he was doing this for effect not for necessity. He made a show about looking through the microscope.

“It’s not the conditions but the _company_. So why?” His eyes turned back up to her. Enough to remind her how strikingly handsome he could be. How in one moment he could appear human and vulnerable, but in the next a slavering beast. 

“Why what?” She busied herself with placing some samples back into their dishes and putting them in the fridge. Feigning ignorance she realized almost immediately didn't suit her in the slightest.

“Why have you been avoiding me.”

“Believe it or not I see quite enough of you on my screens and through my reports, though it may be injurious to your ego Count I am quite sick of you.” Wound the ego she thought. Dracula was paying attention to her hair. She had such _lovely_ hair down, it was far longer than Zoey's and had more curl and body to it as well. It was such a pity that she kept it all knotted up like that... He registered her injurious words after a beat and smiled. 

“Liar.” The certainty which he said it, voice somehow warming the sterile air of the lab making it smaller and more intimate. He drew Agatha's eyes to him with the statement. He’d looked at her like that sometimes before, his eyes taking in her face _'Agatha your exquisite'_ . She withheld a shudder. He stood up, forgetting the microscope. “You're _obsessed with me_. You always have been.”

“Always?” She remarked, attempting to scoff, steeling herself. She could throw him to the ground easily. She was quite _careful_ to evaluate his donors for any martial arts capabilities and weed them out. Though Agatha dined rarely, she did so with the utmost discretion. A habit she supposed she’d learned from him.

“Ever since you called my name through that gate. Perhaps before that, speaking to our dear Johnny.”

“You were one of many points of fascination, and you now remain a minor curiosity. An asset to be monitored. I’m far more curious about what lay within these petri dishes.”

“Liiiiiar.” He cooed again, utterly self confident and smug.

“What makes you think I’d bother lying to you?” She snapped, growing irritated despite herself. 

“Not to me. How did you put it so long ago? ‘ _It's not to me whom your lying._ ’” He remembered their time together just as clearly as she did and suddenly Agatha felt too crowded. It had been a long time since she last fed and for whatever reason _now_ she was hit with the increasing burning agitation of it. Leave it to the count to inspire her blood lust. He seemed to catch that look and she turned away, denying the opportunity to observe her more carefully, but he caught on despite her effort. 

“Is that hunger I see in your eyes Agatha? I wouldn’t mind sharing you know, I have a delectable little-”

“No, thank you. My appetites, unlike yours, are quite in check.” She bristled. “If you are so keen to feed please excuse yourself and go do so.” Dismissal rather than confrontation, not allowing herself to be cornered she pushed past him back to reach her microscope. She tried not to feel his body against hers, his chest, or his arms as she pushed him away. He did not resist, but he didn’t move away either.

“It’s not good to bottle oneself up you know, you may find that eventually it all _overflows_.” She was ready with another witty remark when he dipped past her towards the petri-dish where the newly contaminated blood mixed. “This is a cute experiment.”

“Cute?” Agatha pulled the petri-dish from between his fingers.

“Might I make a request for materials for my own experiment?”

“I’m sure Mrs. Bluxom can accommodate you, if you’ll just be on your way back to-” He interrupted briskly.

“ _Perhaps_ , but no doubt she’ll come scuttling beneath your heels pestering you and-” Agatha sighed, impatient, itching and burning.

“Out with it then!”

“I could use a cadaver. Purely for science of course.” he said sounding ready to defend himself from other accusations. He’d successfully caught her attention. 

“And what could _Dracula_ want with a corpse?” She asked through narrowed suspicious eyes. Her mind flitted to all the disturbing things he might wish to do with a cadaver. but then the count had always been far more fascinated with the living.

He could watch the subtle shifts in her expression forever, the deepening of the crows feet, the lines around her lips as she drew into a displeased purse. With or without a heartbeat pounding in her breast and the thrill of fresh blood in her body he could not deny Agatha remained alluring. He’d been seeking so long to create another like himself, a companion maybe, a pet. But he never would have expected _her_. He lost himself a little in thought and quickly Agatha became impatient. _what_ was he staring at her like that for?

“Is there something on my face, shall I get a mirror?” She was all sharp, like needles. He could take a poke, he liked boxing her in, seeing what she’d do. She wasn't expecting his response, which pleased him greatly.

“I experimented for centuries to create another like me, I could not have been gladder that it was you.” His hand captured hers above the petri-dish. Her skin was cool compared to his warm freshly fed flesh. Agatha removed her hand looking uncomfortable leaving the petri-dish beneath his hand. Then he continued on as if he'd never spoken such an odd sentimentality at all. “As for the corpse, lets just say I’d like to take your little experiment to the next level.” 

She was glad for the conversation to move but was left with ht feeling of illusion, it made her wonder if she'd misheard. The sincerity of the statements whether or not imagined were as questionable as the feelings they left behind. Again Agatha felt the urge to retreat and collect herself.

“You’ll have your corpse and you may as well take the lab too.” _Let him have the bloody lab for all I care_. That was the British part of her talking, but all her own temper. She wasn't retreating she told herself, only regaining the higher ground. She headed for the door.

“You cant avoid me forever!” _Damn him._ Agatha refused to respond. Opening the door and hearing him call again as she went through. “ We really should get a meal together sometime don’t you think?” 

_Bastard._ Agatha must have looked as angry as she felt because Clara and the tall one were there, looking almost worried. The big one, she struggled to remember his name, oh yes, _Wilson_ , had little pink scratches covering his arms and even his cheek and neck with small red marks that looked almost like shaving nicks.

“Keep an eye on him.” She ordered.

“Yess’m” They responded dutifully. She felt like ripping their heads off, she could hear their heart beats, smell them… 

She started moving away, clenching and unclenching her hands. Her senses were at once overwhelming to her. It had been a long time since she’d felt in such a way, so _on the edge_ . Each nurse in the hall drew her attention, them flames to her suddenly moth-like primitive urges. She needed to close herself away from them.

Her office was cool and welcoming, she did not bother with the lights. She sat in her chair in the darkness, clearing her thoughts of _him_. It had been one hundred and twenty three years, and she had more control over herself then the count ever would. She had control. Her nails bit into the sides of the leather desk chair puncturing the strips like they were cotton.


	7. Deadly Dreams

**Chapter Seven:**

**Deadly Dreams**

* * *

There was a little refrigerator in her desk that Lydia kept stock of. Agatha took particular pride in that she fed only when necessary and in the lengths of her fasts. Now having resumed a position of authority she could not fast as frequently as she desired to without suffering the ‘effects’, that was to mean the aging effects of extended fasts. 

She opened the fridge and to her relief found a bag. O-, a small biography attached to a little note. She didn’t even bother reading it. She would have eaten a liberal arts students at that point. 

She had nothing to be ashamed of course.. But still her eyes darted around the room once to ensure her privacy before she tore the bag open with her teeth. Oh, but there was a _little_ shame in that wasn’t there? But the blood was cool and sweet. She was awash with the waves of whispering half thoughts and fragments of memories. They were already melting like snowflakes on her tongue… but there was something vaguely astringent bitter too. It was a mild irritation, something which as her feedings increased had too increased. She had a theory that much as human hunger was regulated by the hormone grehlin (which was released in response to food and increased in accordance to when food was expected) that the more she ate the hungrier she became which is why she resisted so fervently. 

Forced however to keep this facade of humanity, ironically she was pushed further from it. 

The acrid drying taste lingered with the need for more. There was another bag. She took it and swallowed that one back as well.

She’d just closed her eyes when there was a knock on the door. 

Couldn’t she get two minutes of peace and quiet? She’d not raised her head to answer and tell them to _sod off_ before the door opened. 

“Mam, I just wanted to check if you were okay?” It was Lydia. Agatha sighed. Rubbing her eyes and sitting up. 

“I’m fine Lydia really… Just taking a few moments.” She straightened clearing her throat. Lydia made a sympathetic face. 

“You look as exhausted as I feel.” Lydia said, crossing the space in the smooth strong strides she always admired when she could.

“Do you have a report or something? Is the Count-” Something glass on her desk fell and shattered, had she knocked something with her arm? She usually kept her desk so neat... The glass winked up in the light like scattered diamonds, it was everywhere. She muttered a curse under her breath. Lydia laughed sympathetically.

“Let me get it.” She said, stooping and starting to pick up the shattered fragments. Agatha tried to tell her not to bother, she felt foggy and tired, sluggish however with a mild pain behind her brows like a blood gorged hangover. “Ouch!” Lydia hissed, in pain. Glass slicing a neat gash through her finger. 

At the sight of the blood that welled Agatha stood, she could feel her saliva thickening. 

“Lydia-” her voice was a papery hiss, a warning. She could hear her heartbeat, Lydia looked up at her seemingly unconcerned and smiled, purple bags under her eyes.

“It’s nothing. See?” She said and held the hand up. The blood thick and sweet filled the space, filled her nose and stained the cotton filling her head with red. She held her breath feeling her saliva beginning to dribble past her lips. She clutched her hand to her mouth trying to catch it but it seemed to wet her chin nonetheless. 

“My you _do_ look tired. Are you hungry?” Lydia continued standing now and coming close… What was she thinking? What was she doing!? She’d come so close that she could hear her heartbeat lapping wave beating on a distant shore. A tangible feeling, a tide pulling her in. She had nowhere to run, her throat was scorched. _Hungry so hungry_. “It’s alright Agatha, you just have to say so.” What was she saying? God she was unbuttoning her collar, blood staining white fabric and smearing on her pale freckled throat. That sweet freckled throat. She remembered the sweet brine of her skin after a long day in the sun. The warm garden dirt under her fingers, fragrant with life. Living like blood... 

“Remember how it used to be?” Lydia hummed and Agatha, somewhere in her mind she knew she should push her away. That had ended a long time ago, ancient history. Lydia was kissing her, inviting her tongue, hands exploring her body, neck arched to her. Inviting her lips to kiss and taste her skin again. 

Agatha dipped her head, the exquisite feeling of Lydia’s fingers in her hair bringing her close enough to kiss that sweet spot where the pulse was strongest. Lydia moaned encouraging with that throaty keen, encouraging with her hands, her _scent_. So ripe, so fulfilling… exactly what would sooth the burning ache in her throat.

The scent of warm oranges bloomed at her pulse point. She felt the softness of Lydia body, older now than the girlish elasticity of youth, but infinitely more exquisite for the years and textured layers… the flavor promised.

She bit through the rind of the orange to veins of nectar beneath. Sweet ambrosia filled her mouth, dribbling like thick saliva from her lips she sucked and swallowed Lydia whimpering in pleasure and desire. Taking Agatha’s free hand and driving it between her legs, up her skirt to rub the cleft there. 

But it was too much too fast. She couldn’t stop herself, it felt too good. She was hungry, so hungry. Lydia quivered gyrating none-the-less, in ecstasy, begging for more. Begging to be penetrated by her fingers which worked cool into the hot wet chamber of her body eliciting more beginning and bucking. 

She could taste the divine ecstasy in the blood, she wanted her, wanted her all inside. Every inch of her mind to be emblazoned on the frigid numb hollow of her dead soul. Each gulp was more desperate than the first until Lydia suddenly reaching her peak grew quieter. Slackening.

She worked her harder, mindless to anything but one more _swallow_ and elicited only shaking spasms, and twitches.

Only when the body fell away and she came back to herself in horror as she stared down at the corpse of the woman who had been both friend and lover. 

She brought her hands to her face sticky and warm and wet with the fluids of Lydia with Lydia's wide open eyes staring up at her… She gagged.

_‘What have I done?!’_

“Only what's natural.” Came an answer. He took her about her waste tightly suddenly from behind reminding her of the fullness of arousal still lingering like a full bladder, this pressure causing fresh aches to rise.

“This is your fault! You did this!” She hissed, bucking against him as his lips brushed against her cheek nose nuzzling her hair.

“I like it best like this. Down and free.” He purred, moving his hand through her hair as Lydia had, only his fingers were thick and strong.

She didn’t want to feel that. To think that!

She shut her eyes feeling helplessly weak just as she had as a human.

“Well don’t look away, look at yourself Agatha look at what you’ve done.” She felt compelled to open her eyes as if his fingers peeled them open. 

The body on the floor was her. 

Not Lydia there, It was _her_ , _her_ body, her face and empty eyes staring up at her.

Her habit was pushed up, a stain of red like a dawn around the neck of white, though the rest of the habit was torn off her her hair dark was fanned around her head like a dark sun with bulging eyes and an anemic pallor. Somehow this was worse. It was like a blow to the sternum. Agatha stood feeling like shed taken a stake through her heart.

“You killed her, you made all the choices on your own.” he murmured and then, “It’s not good to bottle oneself up you know, you may find that eventually it all _overflows” I tried to tell you.”_

Her double gave a little breath suddenly. 

“She’s alive, my god!” Agatha broke away from his grip falling to the floor where the glass twinkled still with ever more vicious shards than before. She didn’t care, she lifted her hands to see the stigmata bleeding from great wounds and felt the fresh pain of them. But Agatha was gasping, groaning desperate.

She just _couldn’t_ let her die. Not again. 

“Don’t leave me I need you! please.” She was beginning to babble feeling weak in her guts and her knees. The empty eyes seemed to find her face. It was her human face, her human spirit staring up at her, bruised and purplish anemic with hollow eyes that dimmed and went blank.

* * *

  
  


There was a sharp knock on the door. Agatha jerked into a sitting position wet slippery drool trailing from her chin down to the table where it had puddled. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, disgusted. She’d been sleeping. Dreaming, of course she had, though this offered no comfort. The emotions so powerful they left her aching and hollow.

They had grown ever worse since she’d resumed her position at the institute. She suspected an unfortunate consequence of resuming work with Dracula, only worsened by taking that thimble full of Dracula's blood when he was unconscious so that she might gain better insight… A mistake perhaps for it had opened old wounds or even older graves.

If she’d been human her heart would have been pounding instead she was left with a hollow almost itchy queer feeling and the remnants of hunger despite the two bags she’d taken.

Another swift set of rapping a rhythm which could only belong to one person.

“Ma’am may I come in?” Lydia was calling through the door. The real Lydia. Agatha struggled to put the dream out of her mind. She wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve shaking a little and taking a napkin from a drawer she started to clean up the wet puddles on her desk.

“Y-yes, come in.” She called, blinking owlishly as the light from the hall suddenly flooded in stinging her eyes and momentarily blinding her. 

“Its pitch black in here!” There was a laughing tone to the announcement. A familiarity shared only between them.

“Lights.” Agatha summoned with a word and the lights came on dim to bright, bravo to technology. Lydia smiled at her and tucked the door shut behind her.

“I have news.” She said, Agatha couldn’t quite meet her gaze, her mind was still swimming with memories of oranges and garden dirt. Summer spent with a woman younger and more foolish than the one before her now.

“News?” She repeated, struggling to push the memories back into their box.

“We located her apartments.”

* * *

They were told to wait for the briefing. So instead of getting off at 1100 hours they waited at the ‘great table’ for Dr. Helsing and Lydia to arrive. Dracula slept above not caring for the day beyond seeing the first Sunrise and usually bedding down sometimes after 0900. There had been no other day at the zoo since that first one, much to the relief of Clara’s nerves. Apparently it was enough to set rats on the crew at regular intervals for amusement among other horrors he concocted. Clara suspected they’d saved a few zookeepers some pain. Her crew-mates however were far less thrilled.

Things had changed over the two weeks she’d been working with the Count, and not for the better. Though they now had a ‘rhythm’ after the first ‘rat’ incident Dane the second shift crew leader had taken a dislike for her, as if blaming her. Worse was the incidents that followed: the random dead rats found in their duffle bags, fly and maggot infested foods which happened too quickly to be natural and the occasional waking to being crawled on by spiders. Clara was the only one out of both crews to remain unaffected. More than being exempt from his cruelty there was the added layer of being clearly ‘favored’ if that's what you would call it. 

Only Clara was allowed to be present during live feedings, only Clara was allowed to help with his little ‘experiments’ in the lab while others waited outside, only Clara was permitted to join his morning ritual of watching the sunrise, which he did without fail every morning rain or shine. Considering it was fall in the U.K that would be increasingly sleets of rain. Not exactly a luxury. 

The result of this favoritism was a gradual coldness from her own crew and the outright disdain of second. She didn’t blame them, with her ‘yes sir’s’ and the cutesy pet names she was like a favorite cat or dog among animals he considered pests. As a result she was spending more and more time at the animal shelter rather than with the crew if only to escape their judgement and stiffness around her and if she was to admit it, to get away from herself as well. 

She should have been at the shelter now, except Dane had gotten a call telling them to hold tight, they were expected to stay for a recent update development and were expected for a com telly with Dr. Helsing and Lydia. It was all quite a sleek set up, the screen was behind a painting which moved to the side and equipped with cameras gave the speaker a scope of the room before the great table they all gathered around. A printer was humming away printing up out a de-briefing sets which would be destroyed likely immediately after being reviewed. Jesse was gathering them and binding them into folders.

Clara was on her third cup of tea he lads who were in various positions of longing when the screen light up. The show was on.

The boys perked up. Mikhel gathering his trademark cards and tapping them neatly back into his hand which never quite stopped caressing them at any given moment.

“Hello Ma’am.” Clara greeted the screen followed by a series of hellos.

“Your all here of course?” Agatha face and upon body filled the screen and Lydia’s sat to her side. By the hollow light of the camera they both looked a little anemic she couldn’t help but notice. VanHelsing's eyes had already swept the room for a head count and concluded who the missing person was “Dracula?” She asked.

Clara answered first.

“Asleep, shall I-?”

“Let sleeping dogs lie for now. Someone can brief him afterwards.” That ‘Someone’ Clara had a feeling would be her. But she wasn’t _really_ bitter about that she swirled her quickly draining tea mug.

“Someones passed the briefing material?” Jesse was doing just that, under the glare of the screen he pushed one towards each of the members and each pulled them open with interest.

“Please open to the first page.” Lydia instructed and they obeyed. They were looking at a profile of the girl suspected of transmitting the ‘plague’ to Sherry Williams. 

Lydia leaned over Agatha to type something on the board and a little image came up making their faces smaller. It showed the first page and that was a profile page for social media. A young woman’s face filled the screen, a typical Instagram picture of a girl smiling up at a camera, too much make up and obviously filtered. _‘It people walked around with noses that narrow they wouldn't be able to breath!’_ Clara scoffed internally, but recognized that she was just grumpy as Lydia began.

“While we found the suspect ‘Amanda Williams’ rather quickly via social media when we first began the search. However in the last few months her social media went dead, she dropped out of uni where she was studying nursing and abandoned her apartment. What you have before you is what we have collated about her habits, her interests and life in general. We believe Dracula can be of some help in tracking her considering his particular abilities. We’d like a team to set out to inquire, keep him balanced and obviously record. There will be cover stories provided for questioning, you’ll be posing as investigators. Any volunteers?” 

Clara finished her tea and saw that everyone was looking at her. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

“Yeah yeah, I get it. What's our timeline?” There went her shelter time. As she sat back and drummed her fingers on her empty tea mug she was beginning to consider numbers for a raise. _Double. Naw, not nearly enough!_

“I’d like a third to be on standby. I’m aware that first shift is over so perhaps someone fresher from second.” Agatha said.

“I’ll do it.” Dane. Of course Dane. Shit.

“Excellent. Get Dracula up to speed. Time is of the essence. Your credentials will be prepared and ready to pick up.” Over and out. Clara muttered under her breath and rose without waiting as the screen went dark.

“Yeah yeah, I’ll get ‘im up.”

* * *

She’d have backup (of course). Dane (of course). Dracula had a leash (of course). 

Then why didn’t she have a good feeling about any of this? 

Well, for one, dressed in her best attempt at a neat ‘investigator-y pantsuit which made her feel like a ridiculous child in dress up' she was standing outside Dracula’s door. 

He was sleeping. 

Guess who had to wake him up?

She summoned her courage, her fortitude and realized at the moment she lifted her hand to knock her bladder was painfully full-

But her hand was coming down.

Knock, knock, knock.

No answer.

Bollocks.

“It's gonna be one of those _bloody_ days.” She realized grimly that might only be too literal and regretted it instantly. _Shit._ The door groaned in fitting theatrical effect as she opened the door to the darkened chambers within.

* * *

“You look dreadful.”

Was Dracula’s first comment upon arriving to see Agatha at her office. Dane was hovering. A hard faced man and a thoroughly reliable contractor. Clara however was no where to be seen.

“Unlike you I rarely indulge vanity.” She wouldn’t admit she felt like shit. 

“Yes but, the VanHelsing _I knew_ didn’t forget to **comb**.” She had no mirror so she had to take his word for it. With her 'late' morning she could believe it, but didn't want to give him the satisfaction so she raised her chin at him and glanced at Dane.

“You can wait outside.” She said dismissing him. Like an obedient dog (or a well paid dog) he left with respect.

“So what is it then? Something is eating you and its not _me_ for once.” He might be jealous.

“Nightmares.”

“Really? You know four hundred years and I sleep like a baby,”

“How appropriate.” She replied archly, and they both feigned expressions of bitter aloofness veiling small smiles. “Where is your nanny anyways?” Clara was never far behind him, the puppy between his feet. 

“Parking the car. The ‘Dane’ insisted she drive, he’s a bit nasty.”

“You might consider that your not as charming as you might think.”

“So whats really keeping you up? Is it Lydia. I can’t imagine I’d get much sleep-”

“I told you-” she was a little stiff in regards to Lydia and she flared up remembering in lurid detail the nightmare in question. Dracula looked a little unimpressed.

“Really Agatha, if you don’t want to share don’t _lie_ , it doesn’t suit you."

What the bloody hell was he talking about? 

“Excuse me?”

“If vampires could dream I think I would have had four hundred years to have known about it. It is Lydia then isn’t it?” They were interrupted by the opening of a door. Giving Agatha time to hide her rattled expression and observe his to be what it seemed to be honest, if not oblivious to what he’d just said.

_Vampires don’t have dreams…_

It’s not like Agatha had had any to compare notes with (no sane ones anyways) and this casual fact set her aback.

If Vampires don’t dream then what the hell was she having?

It was Clara at the door, looking a little damp and carrying the sweet fall wind with her a pleasant interlude to the stuffy grave of a basement.

“Good, your here.” Agatha threw herself into the work, rattling off what they would need to know and extending forward their cover story.

“Your private investigators hired by her parents, they’ve consented for is to investigate pro-bono so that is a legitimate enough truth. Of course you’ll be working for a shell company. Its as above board as it gets.” 

“Right.” Clara said, absorbed in the page she took from the table which had her ‘investigator’ idea and her face stamped into it.

“They will need to be returned for disposal of course.” Dracula was looking at his.

“Is that really how I look?” He said with a foppish scowl at his picture and touching his cheeks as if testing it himself. Both Agatha and Clara shared an exasperated expression and strangely in that moment something about her elfin face remind her of Mina when she smiled at little. In a blink though the image was gone and Agatha cleared her throat sitting back.

“If I might mam?” ask a question? Of course, Agatha encouraged questions. “If we do find her, I whats our protocol?”

“Observe and report. We don’t need a quarantine situation be made worse. Use caution. Your on the front lines of this thing, there is no benefit in potentially exposing yourself to infection. Dracula _should_ be able to warn you.” Clara swiveled him a look with a contemplating expression as if she hadn’t decided whether or not that was a blessing or a curse. “Dane of course will be there as well, but he’s not to follow you in case of exposure, merely report.” If possible Clara looked even _less_ pleased. 

She was beginning to look _worn_ out perhaps Agatha thought critically. But not so much as she couldn’t handle herself… She hoped. 

“Your in _excellent_ hands.” Dracula said with a look that assured her the opposite. 

“Anything else?” Clara opened her mouth, thinking about her raise and then closed it.

Not the right time. But bloody well soon! 

“Well then!” Dracula jumped up, "This looks to be fun.” Agatha had almost forgotten something.

“Actually.” She said and withdrew to grab out a small cooler which Lydia had brought to her. And withdrew a dark maroon bag. “Now its not _off the tap_ so to speak, but it might help you get into character.” She said and his eyes betrayed feline curiosity as he took it. 

“How thoughtful.” He murmured and then after a long look into her eyes. “As to your little problem Agatha, feel free to drop by for some pointers. I’ve got plenty of room, they call it a 'king size'. Very appropriate considering.” Cheeky bastard, Clara looked on perplexed but with sharp observant eyes.

Sometimes the best answer was no answer.

“I look forward to a report about what you find, that is unless you can’t in which case I’m sure we can find someone capable of the task.” 

“Don’t start looking,” He said and ripped the cap of the blood open with his teeth. Agatha flinched, not prepared for the scintillating wave, this did not go unnoticed and with purpose, Dracula ‘accidentally’ _dripped_ some blood upon the desk. “Oops, where are my table manners.” he said having squeezed it dry and now laved around his mouth with that fat sluggishly gleaming red tongue. Agatha's mouth was dry and her throat throbbed. Clara observed the change in Agatha’s face with a lance of worry and the hairs upon her neck rose. Always more military than medicinal, Clara could never have suspected the woman she worked for to be sensitive. Yet she looked like perhaps she might faint from the sight of the blood, or perhaps it was the mess? 

“It’s alright, I’ve got it.” Clara withdrew a napkin from her pocket (it was an old bar napkin from the last time she’d used this sleazy suit jacket) and laid it over the smear with a sigh. Agatha grabbed her by the hand so roughly she flinched, the hand like ice. Clara started and Agatha, seeming to realize what she’d done, withdrew just as quickly with such a speed Clara wondered if it ever occurred were it not for the embarrassed expression on her face.

“I’ll handle that. You're dismissed.” 

It left her surprisingly unnerved and shaken, though she couldn’t pin why. Dracula merely shrugged and she was equally eager to leave swiping before she forgot their ID’s. Dracula's expression was one of lingering pleasure and almost dreamy, in the way he sometimes got after a drink. as they got out into the hall and the door closed behind them.

“Do you have to be so rude!” She demanded, her hand still tingling. _Her hands were like ice!_ Her eyes roved for a hazard disposal bin and found it across. Dracula still had the little bag in his hand as they left she saw this and fearing a drip, and perhaps a little too overzealous due to her nerves she snapped it up out of his hands without much thinking. She’d just dropped it in when he grabbed her hand. 

It was stupid of her. When ever he fed he was always particularly more _on edge_ but they had a rhythm to his feedings and her head hadn't been in the game. She hadn't been appropriately attentive. There was blood on her finger she saw, her wrist flexing in his grip, the red jewel the focus of his eyes. 

She stilled absolutely, her instincts kicking in, those worthy instincts honed by animals in ever situation which were far more reliable then most humans instincts that were untested. 

He looked at her and she saw by that, he was not **so** far gone. Still she dared not risk pulling her hand free as he brought it to his lips and curling down her unaffected digits pulled the finger into her mouth.

Her stomach flipped. The sensation was cool and slippery, his teeth dangerous deadly ridges making her heart dance in trepidation and relay those beats through her finger to dance upon his tongue that curled there.

“Count Dracula.” She murmured a gentle entreaty. He lingered for a second, and then withdrew with the slight shake of restraint. He was far closer than she’d like from the corner of her eye she saw Dane watching with a leer of absolute disgust and this unsteadied her a little further. She felt suddenly guilty, The counts face was one of focus, and concentration. She was supposed to pay attention to that kind of thing. To know and not invite this sort of behavior. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you?” He asked a forced noise, but not harsh, more amusement spoken through attempted restraint. 

“Of course,” She said and met his gaze for a single languid second so that he could see she meant it.

“Are we getting on?” Dane snapped and she eased her attention away, at least by her eyes, if not her mind which was attuned to only the predator. 

“Got somewhere else to be?” She snapped and then. “You can drive this time.” And digging out the keys she flung them for him to catch. ' _Fuck you_ ' her eyes said to that look of disgust. 

The moment was over. Dane stormed a little ahead and her attention was able to ease again.

“I’m not.” Dracula said suddenly, as if finishing a thought.

“What?”

“Sorry,” He said and she looked up to see his expression, no longer purely predatory look in her eyes and her insides gummed up, like and those unsteady nerves flared to something like anger. 

“I don’t expect you to be sorry about anything.” It escaped, harsher than she intended. Where had her cool and calm disposition gone? They smoldered under the look that was entirely to 'man' like.

She could handle beasts.

Not that.

Dracula watched her go, a touch bewildered. He hadn’t been expecting anger in her eyes which blazed in a flash. Like when a shovel strikes a stone unexpectedly in sand. Sand or something more interesting. He couldn’t help but find he might have landed on something in his little Clara. Something buried. 

But she was the least of his worries.

Agatha, his minds stretched behind, though his face had been light there too was a growing sense of surety that something was not quite right. If Clara was made of strong stuff, Agatha in comparison was tempered to perfection. Yet a drop of blood had sent hairline fissures through her very carefully crafted human facade and there was something else. He smelt it on Clara’s hand, the hand which Agatha had touched, and left a strip of behind. Dried saliva. Whatever it was hadn’t been enough to leave anything more than the faintest impression on the air of the office, about Agatha, and upon Clara’s hand but it was there. And he was certain he’d smelled something like it before, or at least something similar…

* * *

They reached the outdoors, Dane had driven up but left the undercover area so that Clara had to run through the soak. Childish. 

Maybe he was getting soft. Clara hunched over the paperwork glaring at the rain warily when he found himself taking off his outer coat and extending it over both of their heads like a leathery wing extended. The blaze in her eyes dimmed, but she looked at him with a strange kind of wounded wariness he couldn’t quite explain. The taste of her finger and the feeling of her hearts throb on his tongue reminded him of that all too acute urge to taste her, but there was that uncomfortable tightening about his chest. The little warning of the deterrent. 

Whatever Clara saw seemed to be in his favor.

“Thank you Sir.” She said before they stepped out into the British gale. 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH-KAY  
> so peer pressure does work.  
> *grumble grumble*  
> (super big thanks for commenting everyone)


	8. Dead Ends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Orlak' and his assistant Mary Shropshire carry up on a lead to find the mysterious Amanda Williams.

**Chapter Eight:**

**Investigations of Orlak and Mary** **Shropshire**

**Or,**

**Dead Ends:**

* * *

Dane stopped in front of the apartments building.

It was a nondescript block which looked much like every one they’d passed before

“Radio?” Clara asked checking her own. 

“Not my first rodeo princess.” Came his snide remark. The count was not oblivious to the growing tension between the crew members and he had supernatural hearing enough to hear their mutterings but the open hostility was new. He watched Clara with some interest in her reaction. It did not fall short of his expectations.

“Suppose every rodeo has a clown.” She muttered, but loud enough for him to hear. Danes' expression flashed and he twisted around but Clara had already popped out of the car and onto the street. The rain had relented for but the slightest moment. Dracula followed, making a face to Dane as he passed was eager to rub home the remark.

“Stay here and be a good boy and you’ll have plenty of time to lick those wounds.”

“Bloody prig.” Clara muttered as he joined her but her thoughts were already on work. “You have your ID?” She’d given it to him in the car of course but he humored her under the shelter of the front door and withdrew it, flipping open the little leather case which read: Francis Orlak. Clara seemed to read the name for the first and suppressed a smile. 

“It’s the name isn’t it, you think they used a name generator.” He’d recently eaten a creative writing student. Jennifer… She’d been Baltic and had very lovely ankles and wrists… Clara smiled a little more broadly and he felt he was missing a joke. “What?”

“You might want to catch a movie or two.” She said and turned away to buzz the door, shrugging her green canvas jacket closer and turning up the collar to the chill. “Hi, were looking to speak to Walter McKinney, building super.” There was a muted crackling of some question. “Yeah that right, were the investigators.” Someone had done the footwork for them. The door buzzed open and they entered carrying in the damp chill. 

“Some pop culture reference I’m missing?” He guessed, only a little perturbed, he _did_ like to be caught up on the times. 

“Not recent. Not even well known exactly. It was apart of orientation that brought it up.”

“And what was that?” Clara was surprised in all honesty he hadn’t heard of any of this but saw no deceit in his expression. They were waiting for the manager anyways so why not.

“Well, its a reference to an old black and white movie made called ' _Nosferatu '_.” The counts thick brows rose like incredulous caterpillars higher on his brow as she said that. “There's speculation that the two survivors of the accident aboard the Demeter a, peter- or-”

“Piotyr.” He said, remembering the boy with some clarity, “And that cook, ah, the ones that got away.”

“Yes, well they talked about what happened and you could say they caught the minds and hearts of a few artists of the times. Some investigation was supposedly done and only more _mysteries_ found. Even Mina Murray was interviewed. They made it into a movie, but fearing rights infringement changed all the names. It didn’t help apparently Mrs. Murray was forming the institute at that time and she bought them out afterwards, that and apparently of course the far more accurate Bram stoker novel who’d gotten wind of it too.”

“Suppressed before it could flourish I’m sure.”

“Its still a cult classic.” He didn’t mind the idea of a cult.

“So Orlak?” He prompted.

“The name of the beastly Count of course.” _Ah of course._ Agatha did have a sense of humor for time to time, it only never fell on his favor.

* * *

The building super arrived, grizzled and with eyes drooping like a bloodhounds and a beer gut. Clara raised her ID in greeting, flipping it open casually then closing it and extending her hand. 

“Mary Shropshire.” She greeted her expression freezing as his slightly greasy hand took hers. He grinned unfazed looking her up and down and then her 'partner' though far less commitally. She cringed a little eager to drop his hand.

“Shropshire! Me parents bred Shropshire, lest your just from the place. Sure you get that all the time don’cha miss?” He said upon seeing her expression freeze. Shropshire was a sheep breed. Mary sheep, Mary Lamb. Oh Agatha. 

“Yeah, The apartment Mr. McKinney?” ‘Mary’ gave him a bitter look as if he was somehow to blame and his mouth twitched.

“O’course, O’course. Not an official investigation innit?” 

“Just some concerned parents at this stage, we appreciate your assistance.”

“Terrible thing, girl that age falling in with the bad types.” The detectives blood having sunk in began perking up ever so slightly. 

“Bad types, care to elaborate on that Mr. McKinney?” Dracula to Clara’s shock pulled a not pad from his pocket _where had he?_ And a pen, clicking it open and could have fooled her for his sincerity. She’d been thinking she would have had to lead the show.

“Oh, you know those kids these days, jeans halfway down their bums, and that stuff they call music-” He continued as they walked. Dracula was making pen motions as if he was taking notes and she resisted the urge to lean up on her toes to see. 

“Was this always the same group?” The door was opened to a dingy echoing stairwell smelling faintly of urine. A smeared ketchup packet was drying in globs along the wall the Mr. McKinney shook his head bitterly. 

“Ain’t no respect anymore-” Clara was certain he’d go on droning so she refocused him clearing her throat.

“Your were talking about her friends Mr. McKinney?”

“Oh, right. Yeah, there was some, some girl pretty thing too much make up like the rest of the lot of em, but long legs-” 

“Is there a name that goes around with those long legs?” Dracula asked.

“Natasha somethin', not seen her in a bit. Some new boy instead. Greasy fing’ acts like he owned the place, Got that little snob look too, the little weasel.”

“When was that?”

“'Bouta month or so ago. Had-er key.” That was of interest. Because that was certainly after Sherry Williams. “Thought she was maybe movin' in with 'im, what with the close. You think he offed her?”

“I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions.”

“Elopements more likely.” Dracula interjected without looking up from his ‘notes.’ They made it onto the fourth level and Mr. McKinney caught his breath but opened the door. Clara was grateful to get out of the urine scented hall. 

“Eh, well, hope you get the little prig for something. Busted up the elevator and its camera. Little git.”

“You have cameras?”

“Was in the elevators.” Mr. McKinney said but his shoulders rose all little and as if she’d asked something unusual his eyes became unusually sharp. “What of it?”

“Might we see the tapes?” Clara probed. The man blinked as if it just occurred to him and he shrugged. “Here we are.” He said and fumbled about his keys till he found the right one. “Not been in here o’course. So everything's as it was.” He said, oddly loudly and clear and stepped back.

“Thanks Mr. McKinney, we can take it from here.” She opened the door, carefully to a studio flat, slovenly laid about with clothing strewn. The smell was of a room long closed. Dracula’s nostrils flared and he stepped in with confidence but Mr. McKinney hesitated. 

“Since its not all quite… official, can’t says I’m exactly comfortable leavin' ya to yourselves.” He said uneasily. There was something decidedly off about the old man Clara thought but she couldn’t pin it. 

Dracula circled the room, and Clara edged in herself. She rose to turn on the light but Dracula called out before she could.

“Dark is better.” She lowered her hand and flushed at McKinney odd look. 

“He’s quite… particular, but quite good.” She said.

“Some Sherlock Holmes type?” He asked, McKinney eyes squinted with ever more concern following Dracula’s tall austere shape move with confidence in the dark. Clara resisted her own curiosity as Dracula slipped into the bathroom. A thin flotsam of sweat gleamed on Mr. McKinney's brow and a knot between his brows depressed. He shifted and looked at his wristwatch.

“Do got other place to be.”

“I’m finished.” Dracula announced stepping out with an easy confident look. “The videos of course.” His hand was in his pocket, not its usual preoccupation. Clara prided herself on being familiar with body language and the count looked like a dog on a scent. A scent firmly on McKinney. 

“Right, right the Elevators-”

“Elevators and the bathroom of course.” McKinney stiffened his face reddening. Clara’s mouth dropped open in shock as Dracula revealed from his pocket a small camera with snapped off wire. Mr. McKinney gaped indignantly.

“I’ve never seen that before in my life! Are you accusin' me of-” With the languid grace of a predator he snapped his hand to Mr. McKinney collar and lifted him clear off the floor. 

“Look I am rather impatient, but I’m going to keep this short. I know you put it there because you stink of some greasy little lotion which is all over the apartments _thoroughly_ I might add reeking the place. Now look into my eyes. Yes _that's_ it.” 

Clara checked to be sure that they were quite alone, a strange thrill moving through her along with fear. He seemed in control but what if he slipped? She had her weapons hidden she was beginning to feel around for them but her eyes arrested in fascination on what she was watching.

Mr. McKinney's face slackened to something like dazed compliance. Dracula lowered him carefully. 

“Good monkey, get the films.” He said releasing the mans scruff and dusting off his hands with an expression of some disgust by pulling open his jacket and from a liner retrieving a handkerchief.

“Yes, master.” McKinney muttered, like a zombie beginning to trundle away. Clara was agape and impressed as much as vaguely disturbed. 

“You didn’t feed on him,” She was certain… But then maybe he’d put the whammy on her too? It was with new suspicion she squared herself at him and did a check over her own faculties as if she might notice some little worm of his burrowed in her brain. 

“Don’t look so alarmed, its easy with addicts. They just need a little hit- your hand please-” He commanded after scrubbing his own.

“He’s a junkie? Clara never would have thought, he held his hand out waiting for her and at her naivety his brows crept up.

“Of a kind, whatever do you think he needs all that lotion for? Your hand reeks of it.” Disgust and horror dawned and she gave a slight wretch as she remembered the vivid detail of the grease slicked hand she practically jammed her hand into his.

“Oh god, _Jesus_ , get it off! Get it off!” She flapped like a panicked humming bird her fluffy hair flouncing growing frizzy from the humid air. 

Dracula took her hand and diligently excavated the surface of her flesh with the handkerchief with the focus of a surgeon. 

“Best I can do.” It was faintly raw, but she would have accepted a vat of acid. 

Mr. McKinney was waiting downstairs in his small super independents office. Now even Clara noticed the greasy scent of ‘pond’ lotion and fought not to squirm or gag. There was a little computer in the room.

“My nephew set it all up. Good lad he is. He puts em online too. I just make tapes… fer myself” McKinney muttered deliriously gesturing to his VCR copies which he seemed to have pulled out from a hideout in the ceiling because she could see the drop down had been pushed away and the box was speckled with the dust. Clara glared at him repulsed and not caring to hide it as she crossed her arms. 

“That will be fine Walter, unless You’d like something to drink Mary?” She was repulsed to be in the same vicinity.

“No, I’m fine.”

“Yes master.” McKinney continued dreamily. Clara gave him a wide birth to leave the room. Dracula already inside over the screen. She contemplated leaving him to it but… This was her job too. A little… Uh, _body fluids_ shouldn’t hold her back. . . She stepped into the tight space to look over Dracula's shoulder. He was leaning down and pressing on the keys to pull up various file logs.

“Will he remember all this?”

“In his own way, I usually don’t stick around long enough to find out.” So he didn’t know if it would be damaging? 

“But it will wear off.”

“On its own, he’s just weak minded so I don’t actually know what he’s thinking I’m just imposing my will upon his.”

“Oh, too bad.” Had she said that allowed out but he glanced up at her archly.

“You know If I didn’t know better I would say the boys were onto something in your name _Mary_ .” _if you didn’t know better?’_ she repeated scouring his expression for a hint of what he did know. But anything he might of was veiling behind a goading twinkling gaze and the blink of dark lashes.

“I’m sure you would like to know.” She muttered, but he refocused on the screen to her relief and was pulling up a file folder all of which were ordered by room and floors. The amount of files was both sickening and staggering.

“That sick _bastard_.” She said, crawling with her own sense of violation. 

“Does it surprise you to know his preoccupation at the sight of the place?” Dracula mused, entirely unaffected. He was going through the folder, with handily labeled date stamps.

“There.” Clara pointed. “We should start before Sherry Williams, a week at least. We’ll need copies.”

“I can watch them much faster.” He said and double clicked it open. An image of the bathroom filled the screen. It was a good view positioned to see the shower toilet and mirror. Clara was going to complain, there was just too much footage! But Dracula enhanced the speed. As fast as it would go and it _whizzed_ . Soundless, but certainly enough to see. Clara was grateful she couldn’t keep up herself but Dracula's eyes seemed to follow _absorbing_. Suddenly he froze it and she saw his expression had finally shifted to that of amazement. She blinked leaning forward. 

She didn’t understand at first what he was looking at. The image was frozen on Amanda looking like she’d just arrived from a club of some kind, she was pale but it was difficult to tell if that was simply the lighting or not. She couldn’t find anything strange.

“I don’t-” She said and Dracula let out a frustrated sigh.

“The mirror.” He said and Clara blinked.

There was no reflection. Though Amanda leaned over it.

Clara summed up the feeling summarily.

“What the fuck.”

* * *

She’d called Lydia.

“Have her send some goons to make their copies. We have more important places to be.” He said, loudly interrupting Clara’s report as they emerged to the street air street side. Lydia heard him well enough but didn’t respond, she seemed to be relaying the information.

“You have leave to pursue your lead.” Clara wasn’t even aware they had one. Upon hanging up the phone she raised her head to ask only to see Dracula was holding something up. 

A match book to a club. 

“Bit thin isn’t it? She’s probably been to a dozen.

“She had it when she entered the bathroom, dropped it.” He said mildly twisting it between his fingers with a delicate flare to his nostrils which gave the effect he was still observing the item. 

“She did?” She hadn’t seen that but then it had been going too fast to observe much of anything.

They waited for the ‘crew’ to arrive in a black unmarked van. The men which dropped down had a distinctly military fashion to their walk despite their plumbers tool belts and ball caps.

“Mr. McKinney watched them with a glazed look. Clara had helped herself to the bathroom in the time waiting and scrubbed her hands pink and upon returning she held it up for Dracula's approval.

“Well?” she held it out with her fingers extended as if she was showing of a ring. She did have a ring but it was on her neck. A silver ring too large for her fingers which Dracula actually happened to catch sight along with the glint of a silver cross the the open vee of her slightly unbuttoned shirt. 

He inspected the hand with the diligence it deserved taking it in his large soft hand and bringing it up as if he was to kiss it. His nostrils flaring again in that delicate manner of observation. She studied him for the faintest look of disgust which would betray her still to be contaminated but he brushed his lips only at the knuckle and released her with an approving smile. Clara sighed, in honest relief, but Dracula took the opportunity to gently touch the collar of her shirt revealing a small silver cross. There was an instinctual flinch, a habit really which drew his gaze away and he lowered his hand along with his eyes as if he’d meant to.

“Those little trinkets aren’t for my benefit I hope?” He asked mildly, already facing back to the building to see the little worker ants work. Clara followed his gaze and upon seeing McKinney again her skin crawled as if little worker ants were dancing on her skin. But in her companions reaction was a worthy distraction which she’d caught despite his attempt to be smoothly nonchalant. The touched the trinkets, absently, having almost forgotten they were there. She’d worn them so long they’d become a part of her really.

“They were my parents. I tend to even forget I’m wearing anything.” She answered honestly, finding the silver ring which signified her fathers time in the military.

“Dead are they?” He asked with all the cool candor of someone who was thoroughly unfazed by the idea. They’d been gone so long however that Clara did not particularly take offense. They’d been dead longer than she’d known them for though she could not help but feel some aching old wound for remembering the particulars now, here with him of all people. “I thought you had the ‘look’ but I couldn’t quite pin it.”

“Whats that?”

“An orphan.”

“I suppose you have me figured out then.” She hadn’t meant for the bitterness, hadn’t felt it until it was worming its way out leaving an acrid stain on her tongue he met it with a placid aloof gaze.

“No, not quite.” He said simply and then they continued to wait in silence. 

* * *

They had an address to the bar, and to Clara’s disappointment it was closed. Boarded up. 

“Dead end.” Dane muttered, eager perhaps to get out of the car, but Dracula was less easily dissuaded.

“Dead might be exactly what we are looking for in this case.” He said, stepping out onto the dribbling street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Too short? I can only write so fast ;_;


	9. Stake out

**Chapter Nine**

**Stake out:**

* * *

“Dead might be exactly what we are looking for in this case.”  He said, stepping out onto the dribbling street.

It was a dodgier night club sort of block. And having begun early afternoon it was now growing dusky, but the light had not yet fallen though the street lights seemed brighter and brighter by the moments, casting their yellow rings making everything beneath look even dingier. 

He was swiftly crossing the street, and Clara had to pause not as confident at car dodging as he narrowly missed one, the drivers horn blaring and a muttered curse audible as he sped by. He waiting upon the other side facing the building. Clara made her dash, quickening to dodge a car and making it with a huff to his side only to find it wasn’t his side as he was already moving walking around to the door which was set inwards behind. A big sign said : new owners, closed for renovations. Clara snapped a picture with her phone diligently.

“Might be right,” She said referring to Dane. He seemed however to be ignoring her, he was looking at the neighbor. A strip club graced with triple xxx, upon the neon lights which danced fluorescent pink.

“Fancy a drink?” He asked giving her an arch look. 

“You can’t be serious.” But he had all the seriousness of a bloodhound, that same look he’d given McKinney. If she didn’t know better she might have begun trusting him.

“Perhaps Dane if you're too delicate.” Oh. she hated that.  _ I’ll show you the delicate side of a stake you bleedin- _ She smiled through little pixie canines.

“Lead the way sir.” She grit through them. 

“I thought so.”

* * *

The room was blessedly dark to hide the stains, though nothing could mask the mixture of sweat, vomit, daiquiris and bleach. God she couldn’t imagine what  _ he _ was smelling. It being a twilight hour only alcoholic regulars were in attendance. Men who spent their government cheques here, and had seats shaped to their arses and sweat stained too.

Dracula had only eyes for a swaying figure on stage, a long limbed doe like creature, a little stringy, Clara suspected a user but hadn’t caught sight of her arms yet. Not that they always had marks there. Between the toes was popular, or fingers to hide the tracks. 

She followed him ever faithful to the front of the stage, uncomfortable, but still watchful. She’d caught the eye of a greasy overweight man and he looked her up and down with interest.

“A new one! Got cuffs there love, I got a nightstick I don’t mind sharin-” He leered drunkenly. Clara's face was blank with disgust and she squared herself in the chance he’d be stupid enough for a grope. She had her tazer at her hip.

“She’s not one of ours Frank you fat creep, drink your damn colada and stop harassing customers.” A mouthy thing snapped laying down a fruity drink with an umbrella which glowed almost neon in the shifting purple lights which never seemed to linger in any single space for long. ‘Frank’ chortled, apparently loving this degradation and the girl swept her head back. She had a distinctly vixen look and if not for her height in the spindly stilettos she might have been a dark sister to little Clara with her fluffy blonde hair and sharp features. This girl had a dark pixie cut and dark rimmed eyes. She smiled at Clara accommodatingly but warily. They looked like cops, stunk like cops but that wasn’t always a bad thing.

“Something we can help you with?” Before Clara could open her mouth Dracula spoke.

“Her,” He said pointing to the girl on stage and then catching sight of this other girl swept over her in a way that made the girl pause as something about him took effect almost dazing her. “And you.” 

Clara didn’t like that look, growing suddenly uneasy, she turned to him.

“Business, this is  _ business _ Sir?” She squeaked in reminder but he hardly paid attention.

“Business _and_ pleasure, why must there be a difference?” He asked, disregarding her concern as he smiled at the girl who was now a little 'fox' in the headlights. “You do have  _ private _ rooms don’t you?” 

“Uh, I… Sandy- I mean Sidney is free after her next dance for a private show.” She blurted, giving the girls real name accidentally and flushing tongue tied. 

“We can wait, _especially_ attended to by such lovely company.” He said and gestured for her to take them.

“Your impossible.” Clara said, uneasiness building as she sidestepped a suspicious wet spot on the floor. His movements had moved to something more sinuous. Perhaps it was the light… But Clara didn’t think so. She was increasingly uncertain about what they were doing there. How could she know if this had anything to do with business? The music dimmed to a quiet muffled thudding. A sound proof ‘private’ room. She shuddered to think about the collection of fluids here. But it was better lit, though still dimmed to give it the hazy secluded feel, the scents too seemed muffled. There were leather couches and a giant t.v along with a center stage and mini bar. She spied a karaoke machine too.

“Its our best room, can I get you anything Mr-?” 

“Orlak. its Francis Orlak.” Clara said, interjecting this impossibly sexless name in hopes to partially call the girl out of it. But she only giggled as if this was charming and Clara wanted roll her eyes but she feared she was doing that so often she was straining her eyes and getting a headache.

“And this is my-” Clara raised her brow at him curious as to his designation, “Partner, _junior_ of course. Where actually investigating a girl whose gone missing- Miss-.” As if the girl gave a shit her eyes went wide.

“Oh my, its uh Leia. _Marshal,_ ignore the tag, all the girls get their own stage name.”

“Probably protects you from  _ creeps _ .” Clara muttered pointedly, but she could have been talking to a wall. 

“Can I get you and your _assistant_ anything?” Despite having fake designations Clara bristled.

“That's, _Junior partner_ -” Dracula was thoroughly enjoying himself.

“She’ll have a virgin bloody Mary,” He said with a very pleased twitch. “On the job you see.”

“Oh of course… And yourself?” The bedroom eyes were unbearable. 

“He doesn’t  _ drink _ on the job. At all. Do you Orlak?” She bit out but he said nothing only chuckled and seemed to release the girl a little from his spell because she giggled nervously and nodded.

“Right, I’ll be right back.” She said and disappeared leaving them alone.

“Are you- do I need to be worried?” Clara spun exasperated to see he was already reclining in the leather couch and spreading himself with feline comfort. 

“Do you have to be such a kill joy?”

“Considering your joy has  _ historically _ come from killing, let me think- uh  _ yes.” _ He only laughed and whether through her own stringy nervousness she was inclined to join him and covered her face, mind awash with the ridiculousness. “This was not where I expected to find myself at twenty five.”

“In a nunnery, or-?”

“Oh, don't worry, I’ve seen my share of these places,” she assured him.

“Oh _really_ , now those are stories I’d like to hear.” She snorted as he patted the couch beside him invitingly. She joined him hesitantly perching and looking rather uncomfortable. 

“Nothing glamorous. Its just that when your a mercenary your clients aren't exactly straight laced.”

“A historical truth generally, though mercenaries in my time weren’t quite so-” She begged him with a look to continue that sentence so she might have reason to slap him. “ _Virtuous_.” He finished and she twitched again, relaxing a little.

“Then really, nothings changed." Despite whatever the count might think Clara was hardly virtuous, his expression was unconvinced however he didn't probe and she was eager to see the subject changed. 

“Do you trust me Clara?” Was this the first time he used her name? It had the right effect, her eyes rose to his.

She did not answer immediately. For there were many conflicting feelings and responses which bubbled up in her throat and played in her contemplative expression and at once stopped up any flow from emerging coherently. So she paused at a small half sibilant and withdrew to consider the question honestly. He waited, ever patiently in silence.

Her answer was not straightforward, it came out slow like a thread pulled and unspooling between them.

“I worked with a woman for a few years after I was discharged from service. She’s how I got into working with dogs. Kind of a rehab. She worked with a pitty that was being trained to be used in rings. She stopped working with her suddenly and asked me to take over for her. Never gave a reason why, but I agreed and Kasha was one of the few that was re-homed. My first actually, it was the first time actually I’d really had a success. After we had a little celebration I asked casually Marianne why she’d let her go to me when she’d been working with her.”

Clara paused at that and looked at her hands thoughtfully. Dracula listened with absorbed attentiveness. Patient as and predator or saint. 

“She told me that Kesha had killed her cat Jimmy. Jimmy was her beloved cat. But it was her mistake, her accident. She’d just left the door open… It only needs to happen once and Kasha. . . Kasha did what those dogs are trained to do. Marianne told me something I've always remembered." And she changed her tone slightly as if to mimic he old mentor.

"She said - _Cl_ __a_ ra, you can’t work with a dog you hate.’ _ ” Clara let this wisely hang on the air a moment. Before licking her lips. “She was right, I’d known Jimmy. It would have been  _ personal _ . You can’t build trust with that.” Her eyes swept to his with a kind of solemn finality. 

Her story was both warning and answer in one and he understood perfectly and even admired her a little in that sincerity, that sluggish earnestness and more than that the way she looked at him now. Because despite the complicated nature of her answer, in her eyes was the simple answer  _ yes, I do _ , but therein was the caution  _ until you show me otherwise. _

The door was opened, 'refreshing' the room with the odors which had for a moment been distant from. Leia held a drink on a tray, red and salt rimmed. Admittedly Clara was thirsty so she accepted the cool glass. Leia was followed by Sandra, who swayed with demure grace.

“Its a little quiet in here, how about some music?” 

Dracula was back in his element. Their conversation a distant memory, already seeming out of place here. ‘Sandra’ or ‘Sidney’ went to a wall panel which apparently accessed the rooms speakers and set something. 

“Two dances?” She asked but to Clara’s surprise her eyes slid past Dracula to hers, raising one black brow. “Or one?” 

“How is it?” It seemed as if Leia was attempting to delay leaving. Clara of course hadn't’ touched the drink to her lips yet but for lack of something better to do than avoid  _ that _ look she popped the straw in to her mouth and sucked. The cold tomato juice mix was savory and thirst quenching. She sucked it back greedily. She really should have gotten a water bottle. There was a celery stick too.. Lunch! She sighed in a little satisfaction nodding with a little noise of approval following the swallow.

“Are you trying to distract me?” Dracula muttered, seeming genuinely fussy and she sheepishly set down the drink licking the gritty salt from her lips with an apologetic cast to her face. Sandra was waiting.  “A dance to start, then and some conversation.” He said to her, she, seemingly a more immune to his charms than leia her smile was frigid.

“Conversation is extra.”

“Not a problem.” He said, confident that Clara had enough to foot the bill. She wished she shared that confidence. She had plastic, but only her own paper. 

“I will get another one of these.” Clara whispered. Raising the drink again for another refreshing sip. Leia nodded but here eyes lingered on the count a little pouty before she reluctantly left. Sandra swayed, taking a place between the counts legs and beginning. 

“The place nextdoor, how long has it been closed?” His hand upon the seat twitched motioning Clara for something. _Oh,_ right... _money_. She witheld a sigh and slipped a bill into his hand which she took with a tug and a pleased smile. 

“About a month or so. New owners or something.” She swayed.

“And there has been construction?”

“Not that I’ve seen.” 

“What _have_ you seen?” She smiled twisting around at wiggle and dance her ass which she slapped invitingly.

“Who wants to know?”

Clara handed him another bill. She took it.

“Seems pretty active for a closed place. It's hush hush but there seems to be some kind of party every other night. Lots of boys from the student crowd, you know the  _ broke _ kind.” She said tucking the bill.”

“No doubt led by a girl. Dark haired,  _ terrible _ makeup.”

“Might be.” Another bill. Clara was going to have to hit up a bank machine at this rate. Didn’t these places take cards? It occurred to her that to get reimbursed she was going to need a receipt… “It's always the same girl, might be the one your talking about. Lotsa girls these days look like they’ve ran face first into a paint pallet..”

“Well you’ve been very helpful.” Dracula provided easing back to apparently ‘enjoy’ the show. Leia was returning with a fresh drink. Clara perked up, almost missing Dracula's next words.

“Now if you could entertain my friend…”

“Wha-” Clara gaped, Sandra was smiling more earnestly now. 

“First time? Just relax.” She said commanding her view and blocking her from her beloved ‘salad’ in a glass. Now there was just plush breasts and swaying hips and a peculiar feeling that she should be looking somewhere else- her eyes slid off into the corner to see Dracula with Leia, no longer on the couch but standing. Sandy was blocking her view exactly so she sat up. Unfortunately in indication of interest from the dancer who traced her hands around Clara’s collar bone. A momentary distraction.

“You wanna touch?” Was that a moan under the soft music? Clara squirmed to see. Did he have her against the wall? Alarm bells rang but suddenly, but Sandra was taking her hands which had meant to push and moving them to her breasts. Soft flesh slightly tacky with sweat were soft beneath her hands. With that Dracula dropped back to the couch licking his lips.

“Thank you, I think where finished here Sandra.” 

“Its Sidney, who told you-?” She snapped, softness gone in place of waspishness, Clara withdrew, exceedingly relieved to escape but her eyes latched onto Dracula. Was that a speck of dark beside his mouth? Her eyes flared but Leia as nowhere to be seen now.

“Thanks for your time, we have to be going.” Clara practically shouted back and snatching the Count by the sleeve prayed to god he was following.

“You didn't-” She shouted from behind but they had already cleared the room and burst back into the murk of the main club.The business was picking up now.

“Its her. Definitely her.” Dracula said loudly by her ear conscious of her pathetically impaired human hearing. 

“And how can you be sure?” she said, beginning loudly then, realizing it was stupid and lowering her voice. He could probably hear a mouse shart in a galestorm.

“Because Leia saw her.” He said and her pace arrested and she spun back to face him ' _I knew it!'_

“She was perfectly willing for a little kiss, I assure you, I couldn’t have otherwise as you well know.”

“Is she-?” Could he really have hidden a body that quickly- wait, who was she kidding?

“It was just a taste.” He assured soothingly, “The deterrent insured that. No need to panic, she’ll lose more during her mense.” More eager to get out of the stale club air then forgiving, they continued to the ‘fresh’ or at least fresher street. 

Clara considered that whatever his methods, they had seemed to be working. She needed to update their home base, to relay what they might now know. That Amanda, whatever she was seemed to be luring students to this conveniently closed ‘club’. Pretty lively for someone supposedly spreading a living dead pathogen.

* * *

  
  


Their instructions were to wait. Stake it out.

They ordered pizza with from a phone app to settle the humans needs and gave Dane a break for his own relief with Clara soon to follow. 

Then Dane snoozed and Clara struggled to wake. She needed coffee. She’d effectively double shifted.

“Don’t stay awake on my account.” Her eyes had just been drooping, reminding her why she  _ couldn’t _ sleep. She pinched herself and widened her eyes. Confidence level? Not quite at that the ‘trust you when I’m sleeping stage.’ Though Dane was snoring like a lumberjack.

“Would you mind if I smothered him?” He asked, but in truth being annoyed was helping keep her awake, so she could almost thank Dane for that.

“Dane would be flattered you consider him worthy to end immortality for him.” She said sweeping here eyes around the streets. Music boomed out of the strip club as its door swung open and patrons stumbled out into the street.

* * *

It was just around 0200 when she arrived with three students in tow. Despite the look being common, Clara’s eyes were skilled enough to be certain she straightened.

“Yes.” Dracula confirmed without her needing to ask.

“I’m making the call.” Despite her exhaustion she was suddenly wide awake as the phone rang. 

“We got her.” 


	10. Breach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team breaches into the den only to find more than they bargained for below.

**Chapter 10**

**Breach**

* * *

When the rest of the team arrived she caught much needed z’s in the van. This was a skill in itself much prized by mercenaries and soldiers. You caught sleep when you could on command. Clara was skilled as any of her fellows in this too which marked her as the same breed as they despite the different packaging. 

It was Lydia’s knock which drew her up. As if she’d merely been blinking she was instantly awake and refreshed for the twenty minutes she’d managed. 

“You’re the last to be outfitted.” _Shit._ She scrambled up and into the back, jogging the van with her movement. Grateful it was empty she quickly found what she needed. Vest, ammunition, combat boots and the ‘military brocade' of Kevlar. Her skin would not be exposed in this outfit. She was already in the game mentally, blocking out the potential risks, at least emotionally, and assessing with cool apathy as she sorted her weapons.

Her fathers ring bulged painfully on her collar bone against the tight vest and she dug it out. She wouldn’t leave it. But she settled for putting it over her thumb. The glove would keep it on. She assessed her ammunition, both in guns and in stakes. The creatures heads could be destroyed to put them down. Enough bullets would do that.

Grimly she thought about the entourage of boys who’d followed the spider into her web and wondered if they were already gone. Likely. 

She cleared her weapon once, checking the sight and barrel and action, load it with a mag and setting the safety. Doing the same for her pistol and satisfied she was done, she left the van.

They were in an alley. Having cleared it and some of the space behind it. White vans labelled with a hazard sign had officially quarantined this section. It was a gas leak officially. A bad one. How bad? Well that was yet to be seen. They were guarded from sight by their parking arrangment and the group gathered openly in the alley. Both shifts were standing and waiting outfitted and ready to go. Clara bundled the massive bug like helmet under her arm and hiked her slung weapon up on her shoulder. 

“Perfect. We can begin.” Lydia said as she joined them. Dracula too was waiting, though he looked much the same as before. She supposed he was to be hanging back while they got into the thick of it.

Lydia briefed the men about what essentially her and Dane knew and then elaborated on what they could find about the building schematics to best prepare them. 

“We will breach from the back,” Dane began. “And clear the building back to front.”

“What about survivors?” Clara asked and they looked at Lydia. 

“In the unlikely event of innocents, they can be removed and we will restrain them and place them in quarantine, but priority is securing the building. Bagging the target and eliminating any living dead or ghouls.” Ghouls were of course the general undead, disturbingly any 'living dead' seemed to _once past_ the 'living' threshold spring up as the garden variety of 'un-dead' only even less living and more mindless and sluggish.

“Target?” Clara clarified.

“That's right, upon review of the footage it appears as if a young man may be involved. Perhaps a boyfriend to Amanda Williams Whether these two are simply carriers or something else we aren’t sure. You are to act with extreme prejudice, but that being said we hope to take Williams for questioning, or in the least recover some sample.” Clara shuddered at the coldness of that word. ‘Sample’. 

“Ideally they won’t know we are coming. You get in, secure the space, restrain and clear it and the teams will move in to sanitize and testing will begin. Any questions?”

“Yes,” Dracula straightened from the wall. “Do I get one of those?” He asked, eyeing the slung gun.

“Agatha reserved a rather particular item for your use Count.” Lydia said, and this surprised the group. For apparently Clara hadn’t been the only one to assume he’d be hanging back.

“ _He’s_ coming?” Wilson demanded and there was a dark muttering. Like discussing the importance of broccoli to children Lydia crossed her arms.

“He’s an asset and more than that he’s resistant to whatever might be carried, not to mention better physically equipped.”

“I had no idea you felt that way about me Miss Bluxom.” Dracula said, with a touched look. She continued as if he hadn’t spoken.

“If anything he can make a good shield. Now-” And she broke away moving to one of the equipment trucks to withdraw Dracula’s special weapon. They all watched with interest but the whispers were unavoidable.

“God help us.” Mikel she thought but she wasn’t certain. She didn’t know him well enough.

“I don’t know what unnerves me more, what's in there, or what's coming in with us.” Warsaw admitted. Listening to the boys talk as if she wasn’t there.

“Were all thinking it.” Mikel agreed.

“We probably don’t have to worry.” Said Anderson (another of Danes) not bothering to whisper. “The dog won’t be far off the leash as long as there is a bitch in heat to keep him in line.” Clara’s stomach twisted, but she was focused and she let it roll through her _. Don’t let them get to you  _ . Still though the seed of anger flared. Not at them, but a bit of bitterness towards Dracula. Friendly fire was the most common injury in this line of work. That was even true on a tightly knit crew, she realized with a stomach dropping certainly that they weren’t going to have her back down there.

“Un _ bloody _ called for Anderson.” Wilson said voice a low growl.

“Sure it is,” Dane agreed, but still had a cold smirk on his face. “We don’t even need to ask who's following in his second.” She didn’t turn to look, she didn’t need to confirm it.

Dracula returned with something straight out medieval- a sword. He swung it playfully but there was a powerful singing as it sliced through the air and it suited him. These swords weren’t meant to slice, but rather to bludgeon, but she had no doubt at the surety of movement he would easily be parting flesh from bone should he need to.

“Your restrictions of course will be relaxed in this case Count. Dr. Helsing expects you to behave accordingly. Their masks are outfitted with a live feed which will transmit. When you're ready.” She told the crew and they began to disappear beneath black bulbous almost bug like helmets. Clara hesitated and in that time the Count joined her the sword gleaming in the murky evening light. He wore now a vest giving him a singularly strange look all and all. Add a trench coat and perhaps they’d have a proper highlander villain.

“It reminds me of the one I used on a mother superior once.” He said delightedly. “How thoughtful.” Clara could not share his grim humor, her mind elsewhere. He continued a little obliviously.  “I was known as the _impaler_ in my time, but I admit it  _ has _ been awhile.” Clara snorted gently which he seemed to approve of and then he surprised her. By looking past her at the men briefly. “Don’t hold it against them, they are only human.” Not so oblivious after all, only presumptuous.

“I don’t, I hold it against  **you** .” Perhaps not the best conversation to have before going into a firefight. _Yes, destroy all your allies Clara!_ But she couldn’t help it, her mouth always got the best of her. “In this job you have to have people watching your back, and your attention hasn’t won me any favors in that field I’m afraid, except maybe watching my back in the sense of aiming at it as a target.”

“Is that what you're afraid of?” He asked.

“Shouldn’t I be?” Despite the dismissive tone he lowered his gaze to her with an absolutely serious look.

“No, because you seem to be forgetting something. I’ll forgive you this once.” He said loftily, making her arch her brow.

“What would that be then?”

“I’m better than _‘people_ ’ especially at watching backs. I’m bulletproof without the Kevlar.” 

Perhaps it shouldn’t have cheered her any, any sane person would likely disregard this as a promise soon to be forgotten by a fickle monster. But Clara actually felt a little better at that and smiled.

“Shall I take that as a promise?” She preferred something in writing, but she'd take the beast at his given word as she had before.

“Consider it an  _ extension _ . I did promise to act a gentleman about you, and no proper gentleman leaves a lady vulnerable for his sake.”

“I’ll take that to heart then.”

“Do that.” He said and she finally slipped on her mask bathing the night in shades of green which penetrates the shadows. When she looked at him she his pupils reelected a predatory gleam. But this was standard of night vision… Just for whatever reason it suited him she couldn’t help but think.

One of the men appeared beside Dracula, jerking his helmeted head towards the club back door.

“You take the lead, we follow.” He said to Dracula, and she recognized the voice as Dane. 

* * *

The door handle buckled, then gave away with a groan of metal. Clara readied her weapon taking it up in her arms, heart beginning a more rhythmic tattoo within her chest. A war march. Dracula dropped the hunk of twisted metal and then merely gave the door a shove with his shoulder. 

It collapsed inside like crushed cardboard the door swinging free like a spring, the metal and wood splintering away from the dead bolt. He stepped in smoothly into the pitch black and in the dark he cried out.

“Hello anybody home?” He shouted and then disappeared inside.

The men stood uncertainty around the door a mix of disbelief and anger. 

_ Son of a bitch _ . 

Clara moved to follow diving through the fear before there could be anymore arguments. She was already deciding that if they made it out she was going to  _ slap him _ even if her back made it out in once piece. 

“We’re going in.” She said into the com, following the count into the darkness.

* * *

  
  


The silence was heavy and thick, every scuff of their boots, every rustle of fabric seemed too loud. A narrow hallway which lead down by a set of concrete stairs giving the impression of being pressed in upon, and with each step they descended the air became  **stranger** . The scent of mildew but something else… Something like the smell of infection. It caused an instinctive nausea and revulsion so that you had to keep yourself from taking too deep breaths. Your body wound up in such a way that you felt certain that you might gag should you breathe too deeply. Before them Dracula's dark figure moved smoothly ahead, unconcerned. Rather than give them comfort it put them on edge. As if they were being led to hell by the devil himself. The count reached the base of the stairs, Clara a few steps behind having been the first to follow.  _ Like a puppy between my feet _ , he’d said about her once. Her heart pounding, uncertain what the room below would bring, the smell of infection growing stronger with each step… Were those creaks of the stairs or whimpers?

Clara stepped down into the room to see.

The crying became more clear. 

And there ‘they’ were, the centre of the room a cleared for dancing. A small pitiful group of whimpering students huddling together. More than they'd seen enter she noted with some muted surprise. Still dressed in their clubbing clothing, clutching at each other like children.

“We’ve got survivors.” Dane said, and then “check the room.” They fanned out, checking between the booths and into nooks and corners as Dane followed Dracula and Clara to the quivering mass.

“H-help us.” a girl from the group said beginning to crawl from the group, makeup smeared across her cheeks. The group all began to break apart, slowly moving towards them. Clara noted how Dracula stepped between her and the group, and they didn’t even look at him, instead they were looking at Dane and Clara, to the others which were gathering back with quiet confirmations of ‘check’ in the comes. . A girl crawled forward reaching Dane and gripped at his leg, seeming too weak to stand.

“We’re going to get you out of here.” Dane said, trying to sound reassuring. “Come this way, we’ll help you out. -Prepare for quarantine-.” He told the com and they heard Lydia respond in the affirmative that the teams were ready. “Clara, Jesse, Wilson, start leading them up.” Dane was reaching down to the girl helping her up, he wanted Clara to help another which was weakly lurching forward, pale looking and sick. She swallowed back her uneasiness, and began to move when Dracula suddenly held his hand out to her, she froze obediently at the motion heeding his warning.

“ _ Don’t,  _ let them come any closer.” He said almost sternly.

“We’ve got to get them up to quarantine.” Dane insisted, ignoring Dracula as he took a girl by her arm pulling her up to her feet.

“T-thank you.. Thank you.” There were a few murmurs of relief about the room. Dracula's face was drawn in thought his head tipped to the side as if trying to hear something.

“You don’t want to do that.” He said more seriously. The others were following Dane's lead and Clara was torn. Chain of command was clear, but her instincts preceded her training and protocol. She stepped around the student at her feet drawing closer to Dracula away from the boy. Something was wrong. But she couldn’t put her finger on it yet. She'd finished her head count. Fourteen at least. None she could remark as being Amanda. Had she somehow left?

“Sir I think-” She began trying to reason with Dane, just as Dracula grabbed the girls arm that Dane had pulled up to stand.

“I said stop '' Dracula growled his teeth baring. Dane raised his gun up threateningly with one hand, trying to pull the girl protectively towards him. There was a sudden shift in the room. The security team raising their weapons cautiously to aim at Dracula, ready to shoot at the slightest provocation. Clara's heart was beating like a drum, the situation was escalating.

“Get your hands off her and  _ back away _ .” 

Dane thought he was trying to _ feed _ Clara realized in disbelief. She knew Dracula's 'feeding' face better than anyone, that was not it. 

“You got  _ two seconds _ asshole.” Dane snarled, Clara snapped trying to de-escalate the situation.

“Stop! Bloody hell stop it.  _ Count  _ what is it?” The weapons shifted uneasily towards her as she moved her body in front of his, arms up, gun slung down. Not shot in the back after all, just gunned down like the beasts they were hunting. She thought mirthlessly. Dracula spoke slowly but strong enough for them to all hear.

“I can only hear Eight heartbeats…”

A beat of silence. Enough for the meaning of his words to catch like wildfire around the room.

It felt as if a curtain of silence had fallen. A chill of dread and understanding crashing through them. They had been so distracted by Dracula and Dane. So certain that  _ he _ was a threat that they had allowed themselves to be surrounded. Clara was the only one standing free of them beside Dracula.

_ Fuck. _

* * *

And that’s how quickly it went to shit.

There was a sudden blur at the side of Jesse, a  _ rustling _ at the curtain on the stage. She knew Jesse only by his height as she knew Wilson by his. Jesse cried out suddenly taken to his knee as if struck by a blow. Clara blinked as a spurt of black surged from his leg splattering onto the ground.

All at once it, it happened. Jesse struck, bleeding and a sudden sneering voice as he buckled. 

“Nice of you to bring snacks.” a voice called out. Like blood dropped into a pool of piranhas, the seven bewildered looking weak students clutching and crying shed their mask of humanity as they snapped their heads towards Jesse. Their eyes gleamed as they twisted their heads, reflective like wild cats suddenly revealing their bestial nature in the green nightshade vision of her mask.

Jesse must have seen it… must have known what was coming because he let out a shaky cry of fear, like a  _ yelp _ , and then he was  _ gone _ . It was that quick, a blink and his body disappeared beneath a throng of pulling biting  _ rending _ . She heard the pops and squelches the screams… 

She remembered  _ firing: _ ‘ _ tht-tht-tht’- _ hiss of suppressed rapid fire at the back of one of the beasts trying to slow their maddened feeding frenzy. There was a blow to her flank she swung to greet the enemy and was surprised to see Dracula who had stepped between her and the blow. Deflecting it, capturing the creature who’d been ready to strike her as she’d struck Jessie. 

Her face visible grinning wild with her teeth bared, her arm was raised with a blade ready to cut, but Dracula had taken her wrist and was twisting, his blade held at his side.  _ Amanda Williams.  _ Clara realized. Amanda hissed twisting in Dracula’s grip. Dracula's nostrils had flared his teeth bared savagely, maddened by the scent of spilled blood.

“Hungry?” She hissed at him and spit in his face, he threw her back sending her crashing into a wall. 

Someone shouted  _ “It’s her!” _ The men divided between the task of freeing Jesse and attempting to track Amanda who hit the ground running. Nimbly dancing around the men her knife lashing out, somehow with her strength and the blade tearing through their Kevlar laced fabric at the sleeve or at the leg where it was weakest. 

She was  _ bleeding  _ them. Clara caught sight of what remained of Jesse as the throng began to split away drawn by the quickening of fresh cuts in the room. Clara was lucky the adrenaline had diverted her blood flow away from her stomach or she would have retched at the sight of her friend. 

_ La tia _ . 

_ Oh fucking god, Jesse _ .

He was unrecognizable as anything but meat.

Three of the frenzy broke off to take down the other crewman Amanda had cut, she wasn’t sure which man it was. Only that it wasn’t the tallest of them, wasn’t Wilson. She felt a strange sickening relief at that. Then the man screamed and she recognized his cry.  _ Warsaw. _

“No no no!” she snarled and dropping AK to her side pulling a stake free from its holster and rushed forward to drive a blow up and between the ribs, surprised at how little resistance there was when it slipped into place. Warsaw kicked it back, forcing Clara back with it. There was a second of triumph and expectation. The creature about to drop except…

Its arm reached back and around as if trying to reach an itch in that spot you could never reach. Her bones popping and cracking horrifically as she took hold of the stake and pulled it out, slick with dark icor. It skittered to the floor with Clara's confidence. Had she missed? Clara scrambled back but the creature was after Warsaw, Warsaw’s blood fresh and weeping… 

There was a flash of silver and a sickening kind of crunch as the head rolled away. It faced Clara, its eyes roving wildly and its mouth still snapping open and shut.  _ It was still alive _ . She kicked it. Warsaw was getting covered in the black icor of its body as it spurted, still  _ fighting, _ its arms lashing out at him wildly. There was another at his leg was biting, and tearing like a dog shaking its head, rending until he fell to his knee like Jesse had. The Count cut again and again detaching limbs which still wriggled and twitched. 

“The bloody stakes aren’t working!” Wilson was bellowing. He was trying to take off a vampire from one of their fellows who had also fallen. He’d driven the stake  _ unmistakably  _ through the creatures sternum but she continued snapping at him, unperturbed by the new piercing. He drove her back and raising his gun he emptied his clip into her head. The gun smoked and she continued to claw, undeterred. 

“W _ ere immortal, _ you can’t kill us.” Cried a sing song mocking, laughing and laughing until the sound was right behind… right behind Clara. Her mask was knocked off with a blow which sent her back like a doll, her head spinning as her vision skewed. She felt the comm link leave her ear. Like how one's shoes get thrown off in a car accident it flew out with the force. And she was left struggling to unscramble her brain blinking her dumb human eyes no longer assisted in the dim light of the room. No longer green but horrifically vivid in full spectrum color and a world with shadows deep enough to swallow you whole. Amanda dashed past her, giggling like a child playing a dirty trick. Clara had fallen into  _ Jesse.  _ Her hand smearing through the remains which were  _ bubbling _ and  _ hot _ . 

She scrambled back her glove was soaking through with the blood. And she ripped it off rather than fumble with the stake she was reaching for as one of the creatures scrambled on top of her. 

She drove the stake into its chest with a cry, desperate and only more panicked as she realized it bore through it, not even seeming to notice the stake as it impaled itself moving towards her exposed face. Its eyes wild and strikingly _blue_ she realized now that she could see color other than green. Its drool dripping down and down until it was only hovering inches above her face. Instinct and panic Clara forgot tactics and punched the creature in the temple _hard_. It yelped. Jerking back in anger and surprise, like a snarling dog shocked by a kick. Clara struck another blow and it drove its weight off her body. Her knuckles split, as if she were punching stone _yet it screamed_. She would punch her hand bloody and raw just to keep it screaming like _that_.

A peculiar acidic smell rose up and it clutched at its face scrambling away from her. She pulled back her fist again which is when she felt her finger stinging and saw the blood  _ hissing _ from…  _ The ring _ . Her fathers silver ring.

She had hardly the time to process that when another creature was on her. She screamed, and lashed out hoping to knock it back when there was a  _ snick _ and a heavy thud of a boot as the creatures arm rolled and it was kicked by a tasteful oxford leather slick with ichor

“They’re like cockroaches'” Dracula declared observationally sounding slightly winded, but in a pleasant ‘jog on the beach’ sort of way. Though he took a savage look to him as he kicked the creature down and beheaded it. As she watched its twitching arm which he'd just severed wriggled its way back the body seemingly reattaching itself. Clara kicked at the body and clutching at her neck pulled the chain free just as the creature found its decapitated head and pulled it back to itself even as the blood and ichor gushed and squirted from the severed arteries. It seemed to begin to seal itself with its head reattached. 

Using her necklace like a garrote she rolled into position on her knees and took the creature beneath the jaw with the chain. The putrid smell of burning flesh sizzling and spitting and hissing was immediate as she pulled. The smoke so acrid it made her eyes weep as it wafted up she had to turn her head away to manage a breath. She felt the woosh of something behind her, another limb lopped off. Dracula had taken position, cutting and slashing keeping the creature she’d punched at bay as it attempted to take her from behind.  _ He has my back _ . She realized with some distant sense not engaged in battle. The flush bubbling and burning away the head came off in her lap slime and gore. Its mouth open but unmoving.  _ Dead _ .  _ yes! _

She rolled to her feet. Leaving Dracula to hack and swing and ran to the back of the tallest in the room. Wilson. He was fighting with one on either side of him and he’d pulled the one off his back throwing it to the ground while the one at his front took the opportunity to sink its teeth into his exposed forearms. He cried out, yarding the creature with him giving Clara the opportunity to throw the chain around the creatures throat, pulling taut as Wilson continued to pull. Combined with the force of his pull and her grip the creatures head split from its body. Wilson fell back hard against the wall, his helmet knocked clear revealing his reddish hair and chops. The body squirted ichor, sizzling as it fell like acid rain, splattering his pale face with blood. Wilson blinked eyes adjusting to the light and he raised his arm up, both realizing that the head was still attached, its teeth clamped in. He shook his arm free of it like someone shaking a bug off their arm.

“How tha fooken-??” He demanded looking at the corpse in relieved amazement and then at Clara. Clara held up the slimy smoking chain, panting with exertion, unable to feel pain or exhaustion yet.

“Silver!" She yelled. "Where are your rings??” She had to shout above the cacophony. Referring to his gaudy family rings he was always wearing. His eyes went wide and he ripped his gloves off, tossing them to the floor before surging forward just past her shoulder. The creature he’d thrown to the ground had risen behind Clara and with a sickening crunch he drove its fist into its face. It was a savage blow and it would have driven the creature to the ground had Clara not grabbed its arm keeping it upright so he could deliver and another blow, using his other hand to gather the creature by the fabric of its shirt so Clara could disengage. It howled, or something akin to howling, soon only a bubbling garbled noise from a hole which spurted blood in the cavern which had once been its face where ichor smoked and sizzled. 

Something wet and slick smearing against her cheek and drizzling all over her body. She reached back over her with her ringed hand clutching at the creature which was attempting to grapple her from behind, she felt its slippery limbs in detached revulsion. It seemed to react to the ring and she was able to twist around to face the thing. She thought she was beyond horror in the heat of battle, beyond feeling anything but the rush of adrenaline. But as she twisted to push the creature back, her hand over its face pushing it away she saw what it was.  _ Who it had been _ .

Jesse. 

His reanimated ghoulish corpse coated in slime and gore.

A new horror. It wasn’t just Jesse… The bitten were returning as fucking ghouls straight out of hell. 

She felt her guts being dropped out below her and clutched at herself suddenly as if she had been disemboweled. She saw only her bloody hands and the smoking silver of her ring.

“WE NEED BACK UP!” Someone shouted. 

“NO!” Her mind and mouth screamed. Clara but she’d lost her comm the moment Amanda had struck her helmet off. _ They couldn’t send backup. _ This was hells  _ meat grinder. _

She stumbled away from Jesse, her head swinging around to take the room. There was Warsaw rising… and another who had fallen, she didn’t know who, his helmet still on. However his movements gave him away as a ghoul. She stumbled back into Wilson.

“It’s a bloody massacre.” He panted as she leaned against him like a large column. “Were fuckin dead.” He spat.  _ Worse than that _ , she wanted to say,  _ undead. _ He tapped his com which hadn’t fallen out of his ear and realizing he still had his she grabbed his vest urgently

“They can’t send backup! Tell them Wil!” She cried out to him. 

“Aye.” he seemed to tap in to his com. “IF YOU BASTARDS ARE LISTENIN, BURN US BEFORE YOU SEND MORE INTO THIS HELL THERES TOO MANY-.” He stopped, “Oh god  _ Jess _ -” He bit back a sob as he saw Jesse coming towards them. It's hard to know what they saw first, but Jesse jerked and his chest split open a gore covered fist with a heart clutched in its clawed grip.

Dracula ripped his arm back though the body pushing the corpse to the ground, he squeezed the organ until it squirted and popped. Jesse still moved on the floor, twitching and groaning unfazed attempting to rise. Dracula sighed, flicking the organ to the ground, his sword in his other hand slick with blood at this side.

“Worth a try.” he said and flicked his hand and the foul wet blood from his fingers sending the organ bouncing and skittering across the floor. He looked at Wilson and Clara, face marred with gore like theirs. “This has been _ fun _ , but I’m beginning to think we're losing.” He said and took a thoughtful look about him as if to confirm his thought, keeping Jesse down with a boot as he did so.

Clara was included to agree, her eyes sweeping the room, trying to think…. 

“Now could be a good time to-” Dracula had begun but a Vampire ran at him, and interrupted he was forced to duck, letting it fly over his body before spinning in a blur of motion to catch it with a slice of his sword. 

Suddenly something Wilson had said returned to her in a flash of inspiration..  _ Burn the bloody building down _ . At the institute they had  _ incinerated _ the corpses of the test subjects in order to destroy them.

Silver and fire.... Her eyes set on the bar across the room. She slapped Wil at the shoulder, pointing. Her face grim.

“Time for a drink.” Down the room two others were fighting near the hall they'd entered back to back and fending off four creatures. “Count! HELP them!” She shouted, as he cut down four scrambling creatures again and again, useless brutality as the creatures only reanimated. He looked up, and across the room to see the men still fighting.

“I  _ am _ trying you know _.” _ He said, sounding put out. Wilson and her were moving toward the bar but Clara turned to the count calling back as she did, throwing the bundle from her hand. 

“Silver!” She shouted as the Count caught it in a quick snatch holding it up and giving her an incredulous expression. She drew a line with her finger in a motion  _ slicing _ it across her throat as instruction.

“Silver is meant for werewolves, not-” Yes she was definitely going to slap him after this she thought with mounting frustration and exasperation.

“Shut the fuck up and-” Wilson dragged her back behind the bar before she could object and send a bottle of vodka sailing into the centre of the room. Dracula dodged back, a mass of wriggling twitching severed limbs as the bottle came down.

“FIRE IN THE HOLE.” Wilson bellowed as magnificent as any true Scots warrior no matter the era. Clara watched as following the shout he raised his AK from where it hung on its strap and in a show of skill the gun gave a little.  _ Th, th, th- _ she felt the impact of the suppressor slap her in the face and then there was a  _ whoosh _ . More of a feeling than something she could hear as the bottle shattered and rained fire down upon the writhing mass.

The bodies took to flame like an oil slick on water. The acidic smell of putrefied bodies swelling in a plume billowing white and furious. A creature ran at Wilson, coming across the bar attempting to slash at him over the bartop. Clara recognized it as Amanda only the second before Wilson smashed her across the head with a bottle of vodka, shattering it on her head making her scream in rage before he booted her back into the flame. She  _ screamed _ as the flames crawled up her face and ran away towards the back disappearing from their sight as the smoke filled the room.

“I think it's time for what you call a tactical retreat!” Dracula said yarding Clara out from behind the bar where Wilson had thrown her. She let Dracula pull her but grabbed at Wil. Fearing he would become lost in the glory of battle and they’d leave him in the smoke and vile acrid ash. He moved to follow. Dracula was leading Clara to the narrow hall they’d entered, the acrid smoke stinging her eyes and nose she began to have trouble taking a full breath and began coughing. Behind them Wilson was shooting the corpses left burning for good measure as he followed his own breathing becoming rasped and labored, covering their backs as they went. 

“Where are the others?” She shouted by habit above the pitch of the sizzling spitting fire behind them, trying to shield her mouth from the smoke.

“Living ones are already out.” He answered, voice loud above the din and continued to lead her forward. She heard the grunt of Wilson behind her and tore away from Dracula to see Amanda pinning Wilson down, her nails had raked across his face as he cried out.

“NO!” Clara broke away from Dracula and though her lungs burned she lunged, tackling Amanda to the floor. Her eyes were wild and as piercing blue as the others had been. Clara’s victory over her was short lived, Amanda strong and fierce easily rolled Clara, her hands around her throat beginning to crush her trachea.

“It’s not supposed to hurt! He promised forever!” She bit out in something like a panicked half mad sob, voice insistent and wild as she stared down at her. Pressure built in Clara's head, threatening to give way. Then something silver and long extended through Amanda's open mouth above her tongue. Ichor dripping down its length and hitting Clara cheek in a warm plop and gushing into her open mouth.

“It takes a rather long time to be sure about that. I should know.” Dracula’s drawl barely cut through the cacophony. Her eyes rolled as Clara watched gasping as the grip loosened from her throat pressure building in her temples ebbing away. She coughed and choked. Amanda raised her hand to the thing running through her mouth as if to feel what it was. There was a jerk of motion and a with a yank Clara watched as the top half of her head came away with a fleshy tearing motion leaving her tongue twitching over her exposed lower jaw and her hands reaching up for her missing top head. Dracula stood, a blur to Clara in the smoke his sword hanging down at his and looking at Amanda with a kind of vicious delight... The neck of the beheaded Amanda twisted too and fro and began squirting icor, raining it over Claras face and into her open mouth and it was sour and strange on her tongue, it flooded her eyes blinding her and she cried out in fear and panic unable to see choking on the sour blood.

“I’ve got you little lamb.” His brogue was an instant balm and she wept not because of the smoke but in weak relief as she felt him gather her up. She felt his heart beating in his chest and she rested her palm against it, never so reassured by anything in her life.

They burst to the surface as if having crawled from the belly of hell itself. Out of hell perhaps and breaching the veil of purgatory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hot diggity damn. I'm trying to get it all out of my system because well... I've got more work coming back up this week :_:


	11. Purgatory

**Chapter 11**

**Purgatory** ****

* * *

“I want to know what the hell is going on in there!” Agatha seethed, her screens black or smoked out from where she sat, furious.

“Ma'am we're doing all we can, they-” Lydia was speaking trying to calm her when she cut off, a flurry of background noise that Agatha picked up easily. “They are coming out!” She said, alarmed into the phone speaker and then bellowed. “GET THEM TO QUARANTINE NOW!” Lydia's voice returned to address Agatha.

“Ma’am with what we’ve seen on the footage, any survivors are infected and I recommend- _shit! Bloody_ Dracula!” Agatha spun to her screens eyes darting until she caught the camera of a mercenary watching the clubs back door. The smoke billowing out white and poisonous. Dracula, something hanging low in his grip swinging and dripping. A head. A huge man emerged from it a smaller black clad figure in his arms with blonde hair barely visible beneath crimson streaks. Clara Sinclair.

Agatha returned her attention to the phone. 

“Get them into the vehicles and back to the institute for isolation.” She could hear Lydia's hesitation.

“But ma’am we risk-.”

“I am perfectly aware of the risk, but I can’t lose an entire team in one skirmish. Bring them back Lydia. Living or undead.” She closed the link and shut her eyes to the flashing images on the screens before her drawing her hand over her face.

_‘How had things gone so wrong_?’ She swiveled again back to her footage but rewound it to catch the faces of the students, a screen shot of one showing an open mouth two fangs extending like one would imagine a vampires to.

' _Not just how did things go so wrong, how did we get things so wrong? What the bloody hell are we missing?'_

* * *

Mercenaries and people in yellow hazmat suits were ushering them into the ambulance like trucks. There was something about them that reminded Dracula of _wasps_ buzzing, Dracula had to resist the urge to swat at them, the sword still at his side. Someone was trying to take it.

“Excuse me.” He snapped, refusing to relinquish the blade as the yellow jacket _buzzed_ menacingly.

“Dracula, please relinquish the weapon we need to decontaminate the area.” Lydia's cool voice was telling him. 

“Another strip down? Well take this for now.” He said and tossed the top half of Amanda's head with a thunk in front of a yellow jacket which gave a little squeal of alarm as Amanda's eyes rolled up to look at her. He also had Clara's necklace in his hands, smoking a little still. He held that out. "And this, and I better get that back." He said being sure to make eye contact behind the plastic screen to the uneasy creature beneath.

“Jesus!” Lydia hissed, “Well don't just LOOK at it! Get it bagged!” Some poor little thing plucked the necklace away and put it into a bag before awkward

“OI!” Wilson's shout drew his attention and Dracula saw that they were forcibly separating him from Clara, they were putting _irons_ around his wrists.

“What are you doing?” He asked, moving to see that the other two men were stripped down and shackled to gurneys being loaded, they looked pale and angry, cursing as the wasps pierced them with needles before going still.

“Get your fukin 'ands off me!” Wilson demanded, beating back one of the yellow jackets, the mercenaries drifting closer, eyes tight with alertness. 

“Mr. Wilson please stay calm and follow along with the procedures,” Lydia flitting about looking like a scolding mother, Wilson wasn't having it.

“What the fuck are you doing to us? Where are you takin' Clara?” He demanded, as they had taken Clara to another gurney and began stripping her limp form free of the clothing using cutting shears in some cases. “She needs bloody help not to be stripped down!” He snapped.

“She will receive help but we cannot break the quarantine procedure. Just.Stay.Calm.” Lydia said and jerked her head to the yellow jacket standing uneasily at Wilson's side. They jabbed a needle into his arm causing the man lashed out, backhanding the offending wasp. It fell to the floor in a crumple but, Wilson swayed, the drug working its way through him. It must have been powerful, a horse tranquilizer for a man his size to work that fast. Dracula could see a similar figure leaning over Clara with the same intent ready to pierce the skin of her elbow. 

He caught the offensive rubber gloved hand holding the syringe and squeezed until there was a little crackle and the wasp cried out. They depressed the plunger dribbling astringent and burning liquid out. 

“Count, what are you doing?” Lydia had been summoned by the cry. She seemed to have the ability to be everywhere at once. “We need to-” 

“You need to do nothing, I’ll ride with her.” He said flashing his teeth and dropping the sword at Lydia's feet in a clatter. She jumped back fearing the ichor stained weapon as Dracula began to strip, leaving his clothing easily in a pile and turning to the yellow jacket who stood at the head of the gurney looking uneasily between him and Lydia. She knew when to choose her battles.

“Take them both. Get them boarded, and begin scrubbing procedures. I don’t want a bloody _follicle_ left behind.” They wheeled Clara into the back of a truck, locking it in place as Dracula stepped inside. The yellow jacket put a clear mask on Clara which seemed to ease her breathing. 

Covered in gore, her hair pale blonde and fluffy around her head like a halo. She opened her eyes, and he noticed with a shock they were _red_ , but then tears began to well up and the red began to leak from the corners of her eyes down, bleeding the color out as if the blood had pooled there and now drained in release. He found himself listening to her heart above the roar of the engines checking its pace. Steady. _Alive_. 

_I hope this doesn't mean I'm getting sentimental_. He sighed, and the truck began to move. And he felt Zoe there, as he sometimes did, pressing against him as if she were at his back. Perhaps it should have felt comforting but it reminded him only of a loss in that moment and he tried to shake himself free of it unsure of her presence within him. Why did she and Agatha both rise up when they were _least_ desired? They were like _cats_ in that way, setting themselves upon him as they did now.

_‘Perhaps you_ **_are_ ** _getting sentimental.’_ Agatha’s clipped, human voice amused, standing across from the gurney her hands tucked into the long sleeves of her habit, her hair long loose and sensual how he liked to remember it best. 

“Why are **you** here?” He asked, wanting to ignore her, she gave a laugh.

_‘Why are any of us here? You ATE US of course! And I remember you doing so quiet without regret, so now you may reap your bloody harvest!’_ She said, quite gleeful of this fact with arms crossed.

“An eternity of your nattering, even god can't be so cruel.” He lamented. But Agatha only smiled. 

_‘She looks unwell.’_ And there was Zoe. She peered down at Clara with a soft easy bedside manner, lacking all of Agatha’s edges. _‘She's dying.’_ Zoe said and Agatha clucked.

_“No_ she is not. _”_ He said stubbornly, causing both women to look at him skeptically.

_‘Perhaps, not dying, but rather undying my dear. An unfortunate side effect of this curious contaminant.’_ Agatha said to Zoe which for some reason only angered Dracula further. 

The wasp beside Clara was typing in something on a tablet, then retrieved another needle. Again he prevented her from bringing it down.

“It’s for the pain!” The woman inside the mask argued and he faltered, but Clara was rousing, she was shaking her head. Zoe smiled in her soft 'worn about the edges' way that Agatha lacked.

_‘She is equal to it.’_ She said, as she had said about her self, seeming to recognize whatever she found in Clara's eyes which looked past her.

“Leave her be.” He snapped, not looking up to the wasp as she retreated. The road hummed beneath them, jerking over bumps and potholes. Clara grasped at her oxygen mask, her blue eyes shining through the pink fluid leaking from her eye staining the whites still. 

“Am I dying?” She rasped and coughed. He could see a sheen of sweat forming on her brow and collecting cold over her naked shape. 

“No-” Agatha shot him a glare, arms crossed as she passed judgment.

_‘You do not know that, Count, why lie to the girl?’_ Snapped with her usual sharpness.

“She’s not-” He bit out, speaking aloud and earning a look from the wasp who felt his comment was directed to her. “

_‘Interesting, I accused you once before of lying, but of course you weren’t lying to 'me 'you were merely lying to yourself… You are a creature of habit-’_ He ignored Agatha, attempting to block her out as he frowned down at Clara who was staring up at him unsettled and uncertain, taking a shaky breath from within the oxygen mask. Why did the idea bother him? Why was his deterrent acting up slightly causing an ache? He’d seen thousands of humans die, and had even enjoyed it by his own hands… ah, he thought ' _of course'_.

"We had a deal.” He added, as if this mattered. It did for him. It was a matter of honor. “You’re not going anywhere, besides I am quite looking forward to breaking you down into submitting to a taste.” Clara removed her mask, mouth twisting wryly.

“Don’t hold your breath Sir.” She told him, and replaced the mask, seeming somehow _relieved_ by their conversation, as if it was the last thing she needed to do before falling into unconsciousness, which is exactly what she did then. Still smiling slightly as her body fell into limp slumber.

But Dracula could hold his breath, indefinitely actually, and that's exactly what he planned on doing. 

* * *

They were brought through the tunnels and their 'sanitation' began.

Re-clothed, Dracula this time begrudgingly wearing scrubs but somehow confident he made the thin scratchy fabric look good nonetheless. They tried separating him from the team, intent on putting all four ‘survivors’ inside for monitoring but after a cool refusal he was placed in an isolated room with Clara was being monitored while he awaited his own screening to go through. 

He lay back on his gurney, arms tucked under his head and eyes closed as if asleep but he was listening. Hearing every catch in the lungs, every skip of her heartbeat. The smell of sweat was stronger, her body rising to a fever but it was not the same scent as the Ghoul Sherry had been, it was almost _floral_ , it tickled and cloyed the nose at the edges of scent skirting discernment, like the scent of bruised flower petals. There was a swoosh as the doors slid open and Dracula sat up surprised to see not a yellow jacket, but the familiar stoic face of Agatha.

“Get dressed and come with me” She said, laying a stack of neatly folded clothing beside him. Dracula opened his mouth, but glanced at Clara’s form. “She will wait for you, if you’d like her to survive this I need you to join me.” 

He rose quickly and without argument catching her off guard in a way. She was expecting wit, sarcasm, refusal, negotiation. Instead he asked a rather sensible question.

“The others, have they turned?” 

“Not yet, but they will if the pathogen continues to spread through them, it's time to put your recent meals to work Count. Come.”

* * *

  
  


She didn’t know what to think. Caught between staring at the cell beneath the microscope and her own distracting thoughts which were quite off topic. She was wondering about Dracula and the girl. Why he worked quietly and efficiently beside her, and why it grated on her nerves so much that she wished to shake him and then send him back to the confinement box to wait with Clara. 

But she did neither of those things. 

“You're distracted.” He commented, “Out with it, we have work to do.” Agatha sat back, to see his eyes narrowed on her, looking surprisingly dashing in a long white lab coat and with a clip board in hand where he'd been reading reports.

“Your interest in the girl has deepened .” She commented coolly, surprised to see a flash of annoyance in his eyes as if to confirm it. “Was it this evening which changed things, or something while you played sleuths?” 

“You’ve become a voyeur Agatha,” He said all together mirthlessly. 

“I am not so foolish not to have eyes on you at every angle Count, but even I can't catch everything. Perhaps you should fill me in?”

“And why would I do that?” He asked. She raised and lowered her hands in a shrug.

“I suppose we could waste our time talking around it, though I suspect that Clara has very little time in which to barter.” When he looked up from the papers again it was with a pinch of incredulousness if not a little reprove.

“You’d risk their lives to spite me?” He with a skeptical quirt to his brow and seemed to study Agatha's face looking for something. She disliked that, perhaps a touch sensitive even.

“Humans die, they understand the risk of their chosen career paths. I have signed waivers to prove it.” She said coldly, arms crossed. Dracula studied her face intently, surprised to see she was quite serious and laughed then.

“You know, I actually believe you." He said and tapped the clip board thoughtfully once on the stainless table. "Well Agatha, if you must now Clara keeps me entertained. She's a new sort of flavor and one I have high hopes for sampling in the future." She watched him speak behind cold grey assessing eyes, she could tell **he** believed in what he was saying, but that didn't mean anything.

“You're lying.” She said certainly and was surprised when he gave a groan as if god himself had decided to torment him.

“You sound just like her.” He groaned to the table top melodramatically. Job himself hadn't had it as hard, his slumped frame said.

“Who would that be?” 

“ _You!_ Or the bloody Agatha you left inside me always nattering.” Agatha found herself amused and a little pleased by that.

“You speak to her often?” She asked trying to not sound quite so interested as she really was.

“Her or Zoe, but Zoe doesn’t say much." She wanted to ask more, her mind already full of questions but he looked up at her rather seriously and said gravely. "You’d do well to remember them Agatha.”

Something about this rankled her.

“Whatever makes you think I’ve forgotten?” She snapped waspishly, and his face deepened with blank condescention, accentuated by the thick brow which crept higher up on his left brow.

“You retain a shallow remembrance, but you’ve lost their spirit haven’t you? You’ve become **hollow**. The Agatha that was, would never have risked human lives for petty verbal sparring.” It wasn’t just the words but the queer sense of _disappointment_ in his face when he looked at her.

She really did slap him then.

A cold dry blow to the face, a snap like a whip, her voice lashing out as well.

“Do not lecture me about the _spirit_ , if the last of **who** I was resides in you it’s because **you** took it **.** ” Her nails had raked across his cheek and he’d jerked his head at the blow, satisfying her by betraying shock on his face as he blinked. Bringing his hand up to touch the gash across his cheek with a wince and looking at the blood there, he stared as if lost in thought.

“Your right,” and then he did something Agatha would never have expected. He bared his wrist suddenly from the clean white sleeve cup and with his nail he gouged a cut until the blood beaded, thick upon his wrist. 

“Whats this then?” She spat, smelling his blood, an odd smell, not quite appetizing, seeming neither alive or dead. Almost like water in comparison to juice. One was always preferable to the other.

“I’m offering what I once stole back, she’s right here Agatha, waiting to be returned to you.” And she **was** there, beside him at that moment, observing quietly the woman who wore her face but lacked something too.

_‘I’ve become a sad creature have I not?’_ Human Agatha asked in sad observation. _‘I never thought there would be such fear in undeath, but I find there is not much more.’_

“How dare you?” Agatha snarled savagely, batting his hand away. But he saw what his Agatha had seen, saw the fear buried behind the ice, she turned her head away from him, her hands in fists upon the steel top. He felt a rising tide of gloating, for the first time the shoe was on the other foot and he'd not let that slip by unnoticed. He was, _always_ a predator and an opportunist.

“It’s rather different being the one in self denial isn’t it?” He said and pinched the wound closed on his wrist with a disappointed sigh as he stared at the side of Agatha's exposed cheek. “Consider the offer standing, when you're ready. She’s waiting for you…” This seemed to affect her, her eyes flashing closed.

“What spirit would wish to rattle around in this barren carcass?” She managed despair sounding ragged about the edges of her voice. He brought her arm about her from behind for a moment, just a moment his arm tightening into something _almost_ like a hug as his head dipped to her tightly knotted hair and his lips hovered at the shell of her ear.

“Living or dead you are an exquisitely fierce creature Agatha.” His voice hummed, and released her before she could complain or combat him. Agatha was left with a strange wake of the feeling he'd left, humming and rattling something about her. She cleared her throat, feeling him resuming his motion beside her with the clipboard.

“Your charm is not always off the mark Count, but we have bantered enough. As you have said. There is work to be done.” It was not a thank you or an apology, but something between which said all the more than either an apology or thanks could say. The Count didn’t know what he felt when he looked at Agatha, but despite all his cruelties it could not be called _regret_. No never that.


	12. Breakthrough

**Chapter 12**

**Breakthough**

* * *

Of course the Silver was the key, but there was a matter of type, dosage and formula to consider. After observing the effects of the contagion isolated it was a matter of experimentation. In order to slow the pathogen to give them time to work they had begun a slow drip of intravenous Colloidal silver. The men's fevers began inching down, their blood examined to find that the infection seemed to be held at bay.

Clara’s fever worsened. They tried for 30 minutes but she began to tremble, her heart rate becoming erratic. They took more of her blood and Agatha was concerned with what she saw.

“What is it?” Dracula demanded as Agatha stared into the microscope, she moved out of the way and offered him to take her place, which he did. “This is not the same.” He realized referring to the men's samples, seeing what Agatha had and turning to look up at her as Agatha tapped her lip, turning to the screen above her which showed Clara in the lab just beyond the room. 

Her eyes darted up and down Clara’s body, then to the other screen showing the three men in cots in a larger glass quarantine chamber.

“How was she infected?” Agatha asked suddenly, pointing to the men. “They were all bitten, or otherwise infected in the same manner as Sherry Williams by these creatures. Where is her wound?” Agatha asked and Dracula blinked, realizing he’d not scented her blood, but then, he pointed out her knuckles which were bandaged and bloody. “Split skin? Every test we’ve taken indicate it is primarily the saliva which carries the mutagen capable of mutating into the living dead, not the blood, the blood- ” She cut herself off in suddenly realization eye bright and clear with the unmistakable dawning of an ingenious thought. For a moment she looked almost alive as she looked at the Count, her mouth still open in mid sentence as if she thought he would catch onto her train of thought.

“What?” He demanded, impatient. Agatha huffed as if disappointed in him, but moved to the side, quickly replacing the slide with another sample. She checked it herself first then stepped back to allow the Count to stoop. What he saw made him frown, he saw the same cell shape there, slightly different than the ones the men were infected with. It looked like she’d just replaced Clara's slide with another sample from Clara. But no... He squinted, they were slightly different. He took the sample and held it up to see it read. Amanda Williams blood.

Agatha and him shared a grim expression of understanding.

“She’s not becoming a living dead, or a ghoul. This is something else altogether, but how and why is this different? Why do the others having similar contact to fluids follow the path of Sherry, while Clara this other fate?” Dracula held up the sample to the light a thought occurred to him, or an idea rather much like Agatha’s although without such adorable liveliness.

“Agatha, It's time for that corpse I asked for. No wait… Make that two.” 

They brought the cadaver and Agatha watched as he infected it with a sample of saliva from sherry. This was horrifying enough to contemplate: even the ‘dead’ were not without risk. Any corpse could be bitten and potentially re-animated. 

But he was not done. As if this was not even the point of his experiment she watched him then inject it and a secondary corpse (not yet animated) with the blood collected from the head of Amanda Williams. 

There was no apparent effect. However Dracula did not seem perturbed by this. Dracula took a sample for them to look at beneath the microscope. And looked rather pleased as he withdrew. 

“It's corrupted.” He announced as if this answered everything, and now it was his turn to turn his eyes on Agatha, and was disappointed not to see her catch on. “Don’t you see, you’ve come at it the wrong way! When the body begins to collapse it becomes in essence a Living dead as a consequence of an incomplete process. Come look at the ghouls blood after it was infected again.” He said and moved to invite her to look. He continued eagerly as she absorbed what she was seeing “You see, it attempted to take the cells of the infected but it couldn’t seem to quite spread through the tissue in its purified state. In the case of the corpse being infected by the blood, it was unaffected, as if it was _ too _ strong, it burnt itself out in a way, though I suspect a direct injection into the brain might-” Dracula told her, sounding eager as if he’d found what he’d been looking for, but Agatha scowled, not quite understanding the cause for joy despite being quite fascinated.

“Its fascinating and warrants further exploration Count, but I fail to see how a failed experiment is to help your pet.”

“Your making a presumption.” He stated ignoring, or perhaps agreeing with her calling Clara his pet.

“Which is?” It was her turn to frown and cross her arms impatiently.

“Your presumption was that it ‘failed’ when it really acted in exact accordance with its design.”

“ _ Which is _ ?” Agatha said, growing impatient, feeling the edge of something great but it was just out of her minds reach. She knew she wasn’t quite seeing it from his perspective yet. And usually she was so clever.

“To infect the living, not the dead and not to  _ turn people into the living dead.  _ Thats just… an incidental I suspect.” 

Agatha opened her mouth to speak, but the words died in her mouth and she closed it, her mind racing over his words and his meaning. She stood up so quickly she knocked the stool over suddenly grabbing at another sample to peer at beneath the microscope.

“I’ve been going at this all wrong! I couldn’t see the forest for the trees, Count you are a genius!” She said excitement flooding her she clapped her hands against the Counts chest, too pleased to be reserved even as the Count laughed a little at her expression of discovery and joy for a few moments she became herself the old Agatha with the spark in her eye as she feverishly explained what she was coming to understand. 

“I thought the living dead were the  _ purpose _ of this pathogen, a patented creation for the purpose of spreading infection! It made sense beneath the context of viral warfare…” She continued rattling off excitedly. “But what you're saying is that this is actually an incomplete process, a mutation gone awry, carried in the saliva of those turned. This isn’t viral warfare, this is a- a  _ patented  _ vampirism! An unfinished unstable product that turns living hosts exposed to the weak strain into mindless creatures, and the dead into ghouls.” She spun around expression tightening into one of thoughts as she tapped her fingers along her chin in thought facing the microscope again. “But why, and to what purpose? Amanda was a club girl, how did she become what she is now? What was her point of infection?”

“Agatha, I do love your revelations but, we have some rather more short sighted matters to address.” He said, taking her hand and clasping in his hand. For a moment Agatha was still lost within her joy of discovery and sense of satisfaction. She returned the Counts smile, even the gentle squeeze of his hand, his eyes capturing hers with something like tenderness. She blinked snapping back to reality and pulled her hand away with a gentle clearing of her throat.

“Yes of course. Do you have any suggestions?” It was time for the Count to think aloud.

“The colloidal silver is working on the others?” He knew the answer but enjoyed the activity of conversation between him and Agatha.

“Quite well actually, we have increased the dosage and there is the potential that it may eradicate what remains, but as we saw it did not work on Clara, if anything it worsened the reaction, increasing her rate of deterioration.” Dracula nodded. 

“Antibiotic.” He murmured suddenly.

“Absolutely useless I assure you-” 

“Not as treatment, ” He said rolling his eyes. “As a comparison. What happens when you introduce a weak antibiotic to a strong pathogen?”

“It… adapts or ignores it.”

“Yes, well what happens when not only is it weak, but the pathogen theoretically is capable of identifying it as a threat?” Agatha caught on nodding. 

“Her white blood cells went through the roof after introducing it, increasing the fever and-” The Count nodded. 

“It’s taken over her body enough to use its immune system, using it to combat a weak invader. I suggest we find a stronger antibiotic, so to speak.” Agatha looked at him distinctly impressed and he gave her a wicked grin. “I know, genius.” her eyes narrowed as he shrugged.

“I already regret saying that.” His grin widened.

“But you did mean it, which makes all the difference my dear.” my dear . Agatha’s steeled her expression into something carefully blank.

“What course of treatment do you suggest we try first doctor?” she asked coolly.

* * *

They watched and waited. Their third attempt. Agatha’s eyes set upon the vitals screen inside the glass box while Dracula stood at her side, watching her body noting the changes he observed.

He hadn’t objected to Agatha observing Clara as his ‘pet’, Agatha had noted and caught glances from him out of the corner of her eyes, making it look like she too was merely looking at Clara. He certainly had the face of someone looking down on a beloved pet. Or someone beloved. She focused her eyes back to the screen at that reminding herself that the girl was to be pitied as being the Counts new toy and certainly not envied. No Agatha told herself, she did not envy, but what was it about this girl? The Count always had his reasons, a psychological drive. What was it this girl possessed that he so desired to consume?

In Lucy was the love of death, in Zoe’s deaths acceptance. Clara’s ‘what’?

“She’s breathing easier.” Dracula observed from her bedside, his gaze intent as he focused on listening to the subtle biological shifts. Suddenly something occurred to Agatha.

“Her blood.” She frowned, unable to help herself. “You’ve collected it several times today.” Agatha couldn’t believe it.

“We should wait before taking another sample.” He said, still looking down at Clara beneath him whose chest was beginning to rise and fall more smoothly. He misunderstood the attention of Agatha’s words.

“No, I meant you took her blood without difficulty.” Dracula looked up, brows raised and gave a shrug as this was perfectly normal, and not in fact quite an incredible feat by her estimation.

“I am capable of a modicum of professionalism if the situation calls for it.” The best version of ‘professionalism’ he’d had on the Demeter was a testament to that lie.

“I remember a time when a single drop was enough to drive you quite mad.” She said, continuing to look at the monitor though the values were losing meaning to her as she was quite on another topic.

“You’ve kept me well fed, your point being?”

“Just an observation. That is all.”

“Oh don’t look so self satisfied.” He narrowed his eyes at her sensing her misplaced sense of self satisfaction.

“And why shouldn’t I? You’ve become almost tolerable.” She bore his dark petulant scowl, smiling quietly, blinking the screen back into focus. The readings were improving. 

Clara gasped awake suddenly, as if returning from the surface having been drowning. The monitor jumped her heart beginning to rise. She began to thrash at her restraints and Agatha turned to see her bucking wildly eye wide and blue, far bluer than her natural eyes, though Agatha had never observed them in particular interest the difference was stark enough for her to note. Perhaps an added side effect of this vampirism? She would have to check Amanda’s head later... 

“AHH!” To Agatha and Dracula’s shock she wrended the cuff restraining her to the bed free and she attempted to tear the iv from her arm.

“RESTRAIN HER!” She commanded already considering where she would find the sedative she needed, Dracula was already acting without instruction. Pinning the arm she’d freed his face flickering in surprise at her strength as she bucked against him.

“Have you been working out lamb? You're quite a bit stronger than I remember.” He bit out with the laughing edge of uneasiness as she jerked beneath his grasp. Her eyes were wide, an expression of rage and hatred contorting her features as she looked up at him. 

“GET IT OUT!” She screamed then a long wail becoming a sob as she thrashed.

“Not yet, you need your medicine darling.” He cooed but there was tension there as he kept her pinned. Agatha left the lab, rushing to get some sedatives. Dracula watched as Clara's face broke from the expression of rage and became a helpless kind of pain, weeping as she shook her head side to side.

“No, no no.” She moaned in distress. “Get it out, please.” Dracula sighed as Agatha returned with a syringe.

“Do you want to stop the treatment?” Agatha asked the Count, wondering what he was thinking, seeing the conflict on his face and finding herself fascinated by it.

“Perhaps we should-”

“Not that!” Clara suddenly wailed, eyes wild with pain. “Get it out of my  **head** !” She looked quite mad, her body seeming to thrash beyond her will. Dracula stared into her eyes for a moment, his expression darkening as if he observed something there lurking just below, his body tense as he held her arm fixed to the bed even as her muscles strained and jumped, her arm jerking to break free of the other restraint.

“Take her.” He ordered Agatha who had returned with a syringe. She put it down and moved to replace the Counts hands with her own, pinning her arm fast. Watching in fascination as the Count took Clara’s head into his hands holding her head still. 

“Get it out-” She tried to twist but he held her fast, keeping her wide panicked eyes on his as if he was lifeline she was clinging to. 

“Whose with you, what do you see?” Agatha grunted with the sudden flex of her arm as Clara tried to thrash more violently. As if something within her was rioting at the question. Clara whispered something, so quiet and so guttural even Agatha couldn’t make out as a word. But she continued to mouth, as if she was trying to speak. Dracula held her face securely, and lowered his head above her, his ear above her mouth. “Tell me sweetheart, tell me what you see.”

“I … seee-YOU!” Dracula jerked back as if he’d been burned, his lip curling back his teeth vicious and feral as he growled, Clara laughed, but her eyes were weeping, it was a queer sight, like she was being torn in two. He returned his grasp, snarling down at the face. 

“Get out! Get out. ” Clara's lip curled her face contorting again with rage, she bucked up her teeth snapping the count only just managing to jerk his head out of the way from her snapping teeth. He grabbed her jaw, almost violently staring down into her face and wild eyes.

“Reach for me Clara, think of me.” His voice lowered to a velvety soft murmur, Agatha watching in curious fascination only to realize too late what he was going to do as he lowered his mouth to hers.

“Count don’t-” but she’d called out too late. Clara’s body bucked violently one final time as his lips pressed against hers and his tongue slid out entering her mouth. Then suddenly, and almost equally violently, her body slackened, like a puppet with its strings cut.

The count was kissing her with a seeming passion, invading her mouth with his tongue. Invading her mouth with his saliva . The vampires kiss, more literal perhaps, but effective still: The vampires saliva an opiate… and the venom it carried a link between minds. 

Agatha found it difficult to watch as well as to look away, keeping hold of her arm just in case but moving her eyes over to the screen to observe the vitals. The heart was slowing but still quick, her brain waves had steadied into another form of waves less violent, moving into something closer to rem sleep. Clara groaned suddenly against the Count's mouth an almost explicit noise which had Agatha rising and clearing her throat, brushing herself off.

“It seems you have this well in hand I will leave you to- that. ” She stopped seeing at a glance her words were falling on deaf ears so instead stopped herself from further embarrassment and quietly excused herself. She’d observe from the monitors instead. It was for more objective that way she reasoned. It's easier to observe when those being observed aren’t aware of it. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally some more Agatha/ Dracula goooodieees~


	13. Goodbye Kiss

Chapter 13

Goodbye Kiss

* * *

The kiss of a vampire. Apparently the saliva was enough, he felt the tingle of connection, like a wall thinning to a membrane. Not carried through the blood it was not instant, but he was encouraged by the sudden retreat of the invading presence he sensed within her. He lapped at her tongue until she gave a little groan and stirred. He vaguely registered Agatha leaving the room, his mind was focused on the barrier between them, and thinning it. _Reach for me_ _Clara_ , in his mind he began to stretch feeling the wall between their minds and continued calling out. She began to stir her tongue responding almost sleepily and half aware to his. He was surprised by how that felt, but it was a curiosity to be considered later.

He gently broke the kiss to allow her a breath then descended again. He began getting the shape of things beyond the barrier, as one might see shapes through frosted glass.

 _"Little lamb little lamb let me in_. _Can you hear me?"_ He reached to tap the wall. 

“ _Hello_ _?”_ Clara’s voice called between the barrier. As if summoning her to the sound his hand dashed against it, 

_bam bam bam- over here!-_ A Shadowed shape was growing nearer to him her shape distinct.

“ _Yes-”_ He began, but then from behind her shape another greater darkness moved, another shape almost spindly and tall. " _B_ _ehind you!”_ Clara's shape suddenly dissolved into its own and her cry rang out.

“ _ **Get out of me** _! GET THE FUCK OUT!” She screamed and the wall between them thrummed with her furious cry, her resistance to the force invading her. He slammed against the barrier, attempting to force it down, his mouth becoming more aggressive and insistent, his reach deepening. He felt it bowing, then stretching like a membrane. She was fighting on the other side but as the barrier began to stretch he felt the other figure taking shape, a sense of the foreign mind reaching his own. Just as he’d sensed it within Sherry he sensed it again, but this time it was fleeting. Frightened like a startled animal catching scent of a predator it retreated as finally the barrier, Clara's mind giving way to the venom.

* * *

Looking around surprised to find himself in the vision of an empty apartment. It was curiously vivid, only something that could be summoned by a memory rather than put together. 

The light was bright streaming in from outside the kitchen window a small fan hummed on the kitchen table blowing the air weakly about the room, there was a sense of oppressing heat, only the feeling of it, like catching glimpses of a stronger part of the memory. An empty chair beside the table with the fan, a glass of iced tea also on the table, sweating with droplets of cold water as if freshly poured. A little pile of neatly folded linens lined up in a row as if someone had been there moments ago folding. 

There was a creak and he spun to look scowling into empty space. He sensed Clara, but she was _hiding_ from him.

" _Where are you hiding? you can come out now."_ He said leaned around to look through the narrow kitchen which was attached by the little dining area, separated from the living room by a wall. There was a cutting board with bread crusts on the counter and a cupboard left open. The Ice box door was open, empty but the presence of coolness there. He swung it shut as he reached the other side. There was an empty bathroom. He turned to return back to the living room, only now on its other side. The little fan is doing its best to move the stagnant air. There was a telly along the wall, a kind he’d never seen, smaller and more rounded than the sleek new types of televisions in the present. A crutch leaned against the wall beside the couch. Down the living room, past the kitchen was a hallway. He heard another creak and there was a flash in the darkness within the hall, the brightness of the sun making it difficult to see beyond where the light shone. 

_"You don’t need to hide little lamb, you're safe now.’"_ Called the big bad wolf, felt her mind brushing against his almost cautiously as he moved through the living room towards the darkened hall peering into the shade beyond where the light slanted into utter darkness.

He saw the little hand gripped around the door frame first then a pale blonde head peeking a small blue eye from around the frame. It went wide when she saw him before it tucked back in. He stopped between the threshold of the darkened hall and the light and crouched.

 _"You don’t need to hide sweetheart, why don’t you come out?"_ He coaxed, resting his wrists upon his knees as he crouched low. She poked her head out once more, and gave him another shrewd disconcerted look.

 _"I promise I won’t bite unless you ask.’"_ He said and the little girls brow creased, the same incredulous suspicious frown the Clara he knew gave him when she wasn’t quite sure what his angle was.

 _" Are they gone?"_ She asked,and peered behind him, now hovering her small body between the frame and the hall.

She was locked in a memory, probably in some kind of psychological defense. He wouldn’t break her from it lest risk psychologically scarring her.

" _It's just us two here now. I promise.”_ He said attempting to soothe her and outstretched his hand before him within the dark inviting her to him. " _Come here to me, let me see you."_ It was vaguely amusing seeing her as a little whelp. He could see all the lines, still soft and round which would be sharpened on times edge.

She stepped out cautiously and finally he could see her.

She couldn't have been more than six, yet in the soft lines of her face he could see those which would sharpen on times edge. Her hair was long, and very fine pale blonde and she wore a little yellow dress which lengthening ankles stuck out of attached to little pale soft feet. She followed the wall with her hand, and that look of solemn skepticism remained on those baby fine features. 

Out of reach of his hand she hesitated again, and took another moment to scan the room beyond. 

_"Like I said, it's just the two of us…"_ She finally looked at his hand, as if finally considering it and rubbed her eye, and a smile hovered for a moment before suddenly like a tiny flame was snuffed out.

A little animal noise of distress escaped from deep in her throat, her eyes widening on something just below him as she began pedaling back. 

Something black crept just below his vision, pooling into the dark hall from below his feet. He started, looking down to see what seemed like a pool of blood rising from beneath the floor. The crutch was suddenly knocked off the wall, the papers scattered. As if it was raining he blinked to see the gleaming tinkle of empty copper bullet casings plop to the floor beside him in the hall, rolling and quickly engulfed on the wave of blood.

Clara was inching away, the blood nearly reaching her toes. Not longer coaxing he rose and scooped her off the floor before it stained her pale skin. He swept her up, she was light and little, clinging to him like a monkey. She buried her face into his neck whimpering and her little hands fisted into his collar.

 _‘"Don’t let it get me!"_ She cried into his neck.

The dark water rippled as he stepped through it, turning back to the living room to see a second pool was rising beneath the fallen crutch and spewing from a dark human stain on the couch. The TV smoked and from there too blood began to gush. Coloring pages, white blotting crimson, before sinking out of sight. Dracula took a careful step from the pool but found it followed his step, flooding below below his feet like drawn to a tide. The blood pool beside the couch began to expand as well, seeming to well up endlessly as if it pooled from the very floorboards. More than that though, he felt the hot fluid dripping down his arm and looked down to see it was coming from between Clara’s legs, thick and red, staining the hem of her little yellow dress and trickling down to add to the flow below them.

" _You can stop this any time you'd like you know."_ He said, disturbed. He was used to controlling the fantasy, not being controlled by It. But his saliva did not have the same effect as it might through the blood. Here he was a guest, he could withdrawal but he sensed to leave Clara in this place... Would not be good. Human bodies were strong, human minds... The weak point.

The blood began to rise. It was rushing against his ankles.

 _"I can’t!"_ She said, wrapping tight to him.

He took pulled her little hand from his shirt and shifted her down his hip so he could look at her face. Her nose and cheeks were rosy and eyes glossed with tears, brighter sweet sky blue for the clouds of despair there. 

_"Look at me Clara, do you remember me? Do you know where you are?"_ She opened her mouth, then blinked quizzically as if seeing him for the first time. Her hand touched his cheek, spread wide like a little starfish. She blinked once more and then. 

“You can put me down now Sir.” She said a child's voice mouthing grown up words, strange in that little voice but unmistakably Clara’s, there was a little knit in her brow and in her pooched mouth as she watched the blood, as if aware of a coming unpleasant. 

"I know what I have to do.’" She said, face pained. "Put me down." She said he eased her down. It had reached the Counts knees and rose faster still. Her dress flares fora moment before bloody fingers devoured the fabric creeping up it. She was letting to of his hand. wading into the room. 

‘Where are you going?’ She stopped in the middle of the living room waist deep in the blood and turned back to face him. He couldn't resist himself, his curiosity. "What is this place? What happened here?"

"It's where my parents died. You wanted to know didn't you?"

“Know what?” The blood was reaching up her neck now, at his hips, she tipped her head back, keeping her chin up to gasp one last answer. 

“Why they call me bloody Mary."

* * *

Dracula felt her pull from their connection and returned to the surface of his own mind, Clara’s hand was on his face, the same place little Clara had been. They were still kissing, their tongues gently mingled. Her heart beat slowly in her chest traced by a steady healthy beat upon a monitor.

He opened his eyes to the serene sky blue observing him almost thoughtfully as their mouths still mingled. He was stirred a little, perhaps the deterrent stirring to his growing sense of hunger and at this he withdrew. His cool tongue withdrawing and his mouth sealing for a parting kiss. Her breath tickled against his as he departed. 

“Hello sleeping beauty-” He purred.

Clara slapped him soundly.


	14. A toast to old friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crew reunites, and old friends open new wounds.

**Chapter 14**

**A toast to old friends:**

* * *

Agatha watched from behind the security screens. Observing the _unnaturally_ long kiss. She of course understood its purpose. Dracula had deduced that the venom within his saliva could tap into her psyche, given the time to penetrate, that as it had within the ghoul effect the lingering presence within, shaking Clara free from its hold. It was clever, drinking the blood would have put him at risk for another episode of contamination, his body being temporarily used as a vehicle while he fended of the invader psychologically. 

But Agatha didn’t believe that's why he did it. Logical perhaps, but no, the Count was far from a creature of logic. She stopped the footage and picked up her phone, bringing up the contact and dialing. She waited until there was an answer.

“I wasn’t expecting to hear from you since what happened.” said an uneasy, but familiar voice.she could understand uneasiness, it hadn’t exactly been an easy thing when they had first met.

“I will respect if you choose to refuse, but I have a proposal I hope you will consider.” There was silence on the line. 

“I’m listening.” He said cautious but curious. Agatha was confident, but chose her words carefully knowing the words that would bring him, like a bee to honey.

“ I could use you to evaluate the team working with Dracula. In particular there is a girl.” Girl was a poor description but Clara out of earshot would have to forgive her. Its what Jack needed to hear.

“Has he-” He said suddenly but seemed to be catching himself. “I mean, has he-?”

“He is well in hand but I’d like to be sure she has someone to talk to, someone who can gain her trust and confidence.”

“And you think I can do that?” He asked, sounding uncertain.

“You had the strength to give Lucy Westenra the peace she deserved. I would not have called you if I did not have every confidence in you Mr. Seward.” Jack was quiet again, still hesitant then,

“You really think I could help this girl?” Agatha smiled into the phone.

“I think your objective assessment would be invaluable to me, but take the time to think it over Jack I can await your decision.” She said, loosening the leash knowing he’d follow where she led never having felt coerced.

“I’ll consider it Mrs. Vanhelsing.. I’m sorry I suppose I should call you Dr.” There was a sadness to his comment.

“There is no need for that Dr. Seward, how difficult it must be for you as it is to speak with me considering your relationship to Zoe.” She kindly told him. “And I would like you to know that your discretion since the morning of Zoe’s passing **is** saving lives. Should you decide to join us you will know that to be fact and not merely a statement of comfort. But now I will allow you to your own thoughts. Good evening Jack.” and she hung up. Screen black she leaned back in her leather chair, leaving the phone face up on the desk while she thought behind steepled fingers.

* * *

 _'What do we know?'_

A woman Sherry Williams contacted a contagion from Amanda Williams. Amanda Williams returns from a club apparently Ill, without reflection. She soon disappears all together with a young man being the last in her apartment. The club is closed down almost immediately after the incident. 'Renovations'. From that point on it appears as if it was used as a 'den' for Amanda Williams to feed and _create_ more of her kind. Her kind, which was some kind of 'patented Vampirism.' Long teeth, issues with reflection, blood exchange to create more of their kind, it was like a joke. But who was laughing? 

On Agatha's desk was the two phony P.I identification cards. Orlok, she'd found that funny though it was a time she'd rather forget, for it brought with it many things she regretted. Mina, Bram, her foolish obsession which culminated in the failure of Project Lazarus. 

She pushed the plastic card away pushing away along with the shame and regret she could never quite shake. Unfortunately beside the ID was an even less heartening pile. The folders of the men lost in the blaze. Consumed, as the bodies of the recently turned vampires were consumed. One thing shed'd learned from failures however is that they usually came with the silver lining of knowledge. Of course there were always exceptions to that rule, after so long she still could not derive the good that came out of those 'dark ages' of her past, though from the second, Lazarus she'd gained Lydia, Stien, and Zoe eventually. She could never regret Zoe, certainly not Lydia or the lifelong compatriot in Stein who held her flanks. Here the lining was literally 'Silver', fire as well. These would be their tools of war now against these creatures. 

And now they had Amanda. Or a part of her anyways. If they couldn't make 'head' way on the ground, then the head would show them the way. She'd link with it herself if she had to. 

Then there were all those muddier elements and questions. 

Her eyes slipped back to the screen, drawn by a motion.

A slap.

Agatha's cold undead heart warmed just a little at that. 

Sinclair was rising in her estimation every moment.

Her phone buzzed against the desk, skipping across it. Jack Seward's name and number lighting the screen. She smiled as she answered it.

“Hello?” She asked.

“I’ve thought about what you’ve said, I think I’d like to help, may I come in?” Jack asked.

“Of course Jack, I will have Lydia call you and make the arrangements. Thank you.”

“Thank you… Dr.-”

“Please, feel free to call me Agatha.”

“Thank you Agatha. _”_ He said with a breathy kind of smile in his voice. He was so young, Agatha thought with a sigh as the line went dead. He reminded her almost painfully of young Piotr, so earnest and gentle of nature… naive.

* * *

“Where's Wilson?”

 _Where's_ _Wilson_? 

It wasn’t his cheek that was stinging.

“You really should lay back a bit.” He said as she struggled to sit up, looking both distracted and determined not quite meeting his eyes.

“Are they alive or-?”

“They are recovering as you are, or _should be_ given the appropriate time is taken.” He said, pushing her back again as she attempted to rise. She sighed but relented.

“We aren't infected?” She asked squinting at the two bright lights on the ceiling seeming oddly aloof.

“You certainly were, but Dr. Van Helsing and I managed to create something like a treatment plan.”

“Treatment plan?” She asked, scowling and incredulously, coming off as barbed disbelief.

“Yes, _treatment plan_ ,” He said mimicking her tone. “There will be more tests, but a full round should eliminate the pathogen from your system.” He said, watching as Clara sighed, nodding almost absently his ire growing.

“That's great.” She said without any inflection of feeling. “Are we all isolated, or can I be put in with the others?” She asked still not meeting his eyes. Was she _snubbing_ him?

“I’ll see what I can do.” He said, stiffly.

“Thanks.” She said without feeling.

* * *

"Wasn't quite the wake up you were expecting?" Agatha drawled in passing him on his way to his 'lunch', she was headed the opposite way. To Clara, but she had questions for him too.

"No room for chivalry anymore." He was muttering.

"Perhaps it was the forked tongue that she found offensive." Everything about his sulk pleased her and she took no care to hide it. 

"You know I've got somewhere to be actually." He had a date with an Iberian phlebotomist who'd shown fascination for 'oral collection'. 

"Wait, did you learn anything knew? anything that could help us?" She said, serious again, he sighed, waving his hand, obviously eager to 'drown his bitterness' by sinking his teeth into a vein or two.

"Only that same sense, that this entity is weak. It's embedded somehow in the viral contagion, passed along between them."

"Weak?" She hardly wanted to see what a strong entity can do.

"I know a thing or two about mind control. This thing isn't any master, its more of a squatter, tagging along for the ride through the virus." Agatha took note of that observation filing it away for later. "Its weak because once your past its defenses it cuts its little puppet strings and runs."

"That implies some 'mastery' does it not, even if in cowardice?"

"More like a flinch," He argued, " Actually I was hoping to pay a visit to Amanda after lunch." 

"Working already?"

"What can I say? I'd rather not be bored, I'd like to run some experiments with her blood."

No, Agatha thought. God help them if Dracula was bored. However she suspected his sudden ethic was less to do with boredom and more to do with his rankled ego.

"Of course, we'll need to assign you a new unit of course, in the meantime you'll have to stay on the premise. I'll only ask that you not take any of the contamination in as a means to connect to this thing. For that we'll need a better room than the last one." Dracula smiled remembering with an almost nostalgic expression. Then he remembered himself and fixed Agatha a look.

"Your welcome to join me for lunch of course. This one has legs for miles."

"I don't take from the tap, and actually I'm on my way to check on Sinclair. So consider that another rain check."

"That's two Agatha, don't think I won't keep count."

* * *

Clara was awake and alert.

"Dr. Helsing."

"I was afraid we were going to lose you Miss Sinclair. I'm pleased to be proven wrong. How are you feeling?"

"Oh you know, violated." She crossed her arms and Agatha couldn't help but wonder if she meant the violating entity or someone else.

"Do you remember anything about the entity, did you see what it looked like, or experience any imagery?" 

"There was something, but what it was... I couldn't say other than it left me with a feeling of misery." Agatha took note of that. "If I might ask Ma'am are the boys receiving the same- er treatment?"

"If your referring to Dracula's particular method of returning you to us... No, they responded readily to a treatment of colloidal silver. Your case was somewhat more persistent." 

"Ah." There was a beat of awkward silence and Agatha couldn't believe it but she was filling it.

"His quick thinking likely saved your life Sinclair, whatever his methods. drinking from you wasn't an option, you were being invaded by a hostile physic presence."

"Oh yeah, I'm sure he hated every second of it."

"I suppose he could have spat in your mouth." Was she _defending_ Dracula? Clara's eyes were borderline glacial but Agatha couldn't help but be irked by the girls indolence. They were fighting a war, a good snogging here and there was hardly something to fuss over, she was already congratulating herself on thinking ahead to secure Jack, if there was any lingering psychological damage from the entity she wanted to know. 

"I requested that I be placed with the boys ma'am if I'm to receive full treatment, did he pass that along?" Of course he hadn't, perhaps that had been another reason for his sulking. 

"No, but I'm certain it can be arranged." Neither spoke while Agatha finished a small check up, withdrawing more blood to observe before finally leaving the girl, to absently gaze on some distant melancholy horizon and Agatha to her own. 

* * *

Clara was wheeled into the group ‘quarantine’ room despite her insistence she could walk. It was a big glass box with a few beds and some piss pots with the area shaded with frosted glass from the rest of the room but remained visible from the outside. Nothing to hide here.

She stood as soon as she entered allowing the quarantined Nurse in her suit to take the chair back, the boys all rose from their positions, like soldiers at attention. Minding her I.V bag without a word she strode into Wilson's arms which wrapped around her in a tight bear hug.

“Good to see ya lamb.” He rasped, throat raw from smoke. Tears pricked her eyes, her emotion surprising her, she squeezed him back, fiery though only a thin hospital gown separated them.

“You too.” She caught back a sniffle and looked at the others. “This everyone?” She asked weakly. Mikel, Dane, Wilson. Her.

“Aye.” was all he said and they all acknowledged the loss in silence, heads bowing.

A bed was cleared to play cards on, Mikels of course. It seemed like he'd charmed a nurse into bringing them from his stuff. They were all so old and worn they suspected Mikel had memorized each cards unique scuff but they didn’t care. Sometimes Mikel let them win so it didn’t matter much anyways. What mattered is that they all played together. All equals in loss. The disdain, the resentment, had been washed away with blood lost and shared.

* * *

Days passed. 

They'd had to evaluate and approve a new crew temporarily to shuttle Dracula around, Dracula who was being surprisingly passive if not _dedicated_ to his research. He was experimenting with his bloods effect on the pathogen and yielding interesting results observable through a petri-dish which Agatha was just then observing under a microscope.

“Ma’am?” Lydia asked, causing Agatha to stop what she was doing. “Just wanted to update you on their status. The men should be ready for duty once you give clearance. Sinclair will be by your approval of course." Lydia didn't need to read the reports to Agatha, as Agatha had written them. She sighed.

"The virus has left traces in her DNA. I'd like to do some experiments to ensure she's not contagious before we release her. Where are we on the club investigation?” 

“We are trying to trace the ownership of the building. It's been a bit of a goose chase, a holding company owned by a subsidiary…” Agatha raised her brows, she supposed she shouldn’t be shocked, someone creating a genetic pathogen wouldn’t exactly have their name in the open. However whether or not the owner of the club had anything to do with it was a different question entirely. The more difficult they were to find the more likely they had their hands in the pie.

“We are attempting to work under the radar and keep the search hushed for now.” Lydia added.

“No, make a show of it.” Agatha told her, cupping her chin thoughtfully. “If we’re dealing with someone on high they already know we are involved, their club is in ashes, not exactly subtle. If we keep it below board then they have every reason to stay hidden, we need to put smoke to the fox den and see what comes out. Actually on that note I want the video of the boy in Amanda's apartment released as well, an alert for finding a person of interest in regards to a missing persons case.”

“Noted ma’am, I will tell the Stein boys to change tactics. In the meantime I've followed through with the defensive measures you've set in place. Silver bullets have already arrived for standard commission, and the special request sent to the blacksmith.” At the mention of Stein Agatha drummed her fingers thoughtfully.

"Have you talked to Victor recently Lydia?" There was a second that Lydia looked like she'd been slapped. 

"Victor?" It seemed a little over the top of a reaction. "No, uh not since the falling out you know. Sorry you just brought back a lot of memories suddenly." She fumbled, flushing. Of course Agatha remembered suddenly. She'd almost forgotten about their little love triangle. 

"I ask because Victor would be aware of the labs capable of creating such a thing and perhaps have tabs on them" She said and Lydia nodded.

"I can definitely give him a call if that's what your asking?" There was such hesitation here that Agatha smiled.

"Surely you don't think he's held anything against you all these years Lydia. You were once so close."

"We were all once pretty close." She said and Agatha winced the bitterness palatable, Lydia too sensing this with regret pivoted to nostalgia and wry humor. "The two of us your prodigious students, me chasing you, Victor chasing me. Could have made a bloody BBC series with all the drama." It was a little too much reminiscing for Agatha then, withdrawing. 

"What Lab is he in?"

"Lab ma'am?"

" **Dracula** , what lab is _Dracula,_ in Lydia," She hadn't meant to snap, but there was a pressure behind her eyes suddenly as if she'd had them open too long. She pinched her brow, closing them and shook her head. "Forgive me Lydia."

"May I make an observation?” Lydia asked carefully. “I noticed it's been sometime since your last… um.. Meal?” She said, attempting to be delicate. Agatha bit back a sigh, she was right of course, but when she opened her eyes she was surprised to see Lydia holding up a little lunch box. She smiled, sweetly. "I figured that would be the case. Here." Lydia always thought of everything. she accepted the little box. "Oh and he's in your lab, with the head."

"What would I do without you."

"Starve, perhaps drown in paperwork." The smile shared was wane and it left a quiet ache in both woman. Agatha looked away first.

“If you could do me another favor? Turn off the feeds to that room for the next few hours.” Agatha said standing up and accepting the lunch cooler from Lydia, she had a rain check to fulfill. 

* * *

He was brooding. Of course he would never admit to that. Amanda's eyes tracked his movements. Quite a gruesome little thing she was and a very entertaining distraction. 

“You're looking a little dry darling.” He crooned, brushing her brown lock back observing how her flesh was beginning to yellow and flake, the first signs of decay. “Lucky for you I know an excellent moisturizer.” He smiled, Amanda scowled, eyes narrowing and tracking him as he crossed the white brightly lit lab of which she was upon a center table on a pedestal. Dracula found the cooler where the elixir was waiting. He’d had it delivered earlier and now retrieved the bin filled with bags of blood. _Most_ of it wasn’t for him, but some snacks on the job wouldn’t hurt. He picked up the large mixing bowl, also a request, and brought everything back to Amanda. 

“Consider it a _spa_ day hmm?” He told her conversationally. He began tearing the tabs off the bags and taking gentle whiffs of the blood. His nose wrinkled and he poured it in. An anthropologist. Ugh. the blag glugged as it emptied, the next one, more interesting an engineer. After a moment of consideration however he passed it up, dumping the contents.

Taste one engineer taste them all. 

The third had more passion to offer, a cellist. Hmm, he took a beaker and filled it with a nip and poured the rest in the bag. By the time he was done filling the bowl he had several ‘samplers’ for himself.

“A working lunch? I thought you’d forsworn them.” Agatha announced herself first by her scent, second by her movement.

She smelled like paper, the old parchment kind that made you sigh as you opened a book. The kind of scent which took you somewhere far away, yet allowed you to stay right where you were. Agatha was a good book, the kind which captured you within the first page. He’d wanted to read her the moment she stood before him at the convent. 

_‘And now your stuck with me._ ’ Human Agatha chimed in suddenly present at his elbow. He ignored her. 

“The king leaves his tower to observe the commoners. Screens not enough?” He said, with lofty indifference, she chose not to rebuke, fixing her gaze on Amanda’s head.

“Sometimes one needs to stretch their legs. I brought refreshments actually, but it appears as if you’ve already prepared your ‘flight’.” This was curious indeed, something unexpected for a moment he was caught off guard. Like re-reading a book only to find you've missed a page. “Cat got your tongue?” She lay down the lunch box and with her other hand set down two whiskey glasses which clanked against the cold steel table top. _Two_ glasses.

“Are you offering me a drink Agatha?”

“I believe **you** made the offer, I am merely taking you up on it.” She said coolly. Dracula smiled, brooding temporarily forgotten.

“I do enjoy surprises.” He brought up a stool. “As long as you don’t mind being a third wheel that is, Amanda and I were having a moment.”

“She’s free to speak up if she has any objections.” Agatha took the seat he offered her and gestured to the beakers he’d lined up. “May I?” He plucked a taster and handed it to her.

“Tell me what you smell.” A test. He did love his experiments and Agatha so rarely volunteered. She decided to play along, accepting the beaker and giving it a delicate sniff gently wafting it beneath her nose. He watched as her eyes fluttered closed mouth parting to taste the air.

“Male in his twenties. Is that varsity football I smell?” Overripped male and testosterone and ambition. Unmistakable.

“Yes, but what else.” He encouraged her and she took a deeper breath. Catching the scent of the memory.

_Ropes, he was tying them, intricate knots pressing into flesh, tight but not too tight. He looped it binding her legs apart. She loved it when he-_

He was delighted to see her pick up the same memory as he had.

“A boy of many talents.” She said with brow quirked and offered the beaker back. 

“I enjoy collecting talents, which of course you know, but perhaps this one would suit your tastes.” He offered her the cellist. For some reason he could imagine her with an instrument between her legs. She took it and scented it, after a moment she gave a nod of approval. 

“Shall we toast?” He asked, raising his beaker.

“What shall we toast to?”

“Why not old friends?”

“Or to new discoveries?” She countered, eyeing the top of Amanda’s head, the girl rolled her eyes at them like a pouting teen. “She’s looking somewhat dry.”

“Don’t mind her, she’s just feeling a little light headed- How about that bath darling?” He took her up by the top of her brown hair and dunked her into the bowl of blood before it could coagulate further.

A few bubbles surfaced before Amanda Williams drowned out of sight. 

“Now that the children are tucked in…” He raised the beaker again, “To new discoveries and old friends.” She relented and the beakers chimed against each other. He watched her swallow hers back.

“It's rude to stare.” She shuddered as the blood slipped down a heated trail straight to her belly.

“I meant what I said before.”

“About my undeath pleasing you?”

“There's no shame in admitting it Agatha. You've been **lonely** ” He challenged her to deny it. Agatha picked up the next beaker to sniff rather than answer. As usual Agatha refused to give ground. “I can’t help but wonder just what you’ve been unto for one hundred twenty three years.” He mused aloud suddenly. Agatha in the roaring 1920's, that would have been a sight to see. He regretted missing all those golden years. He would have had a riot in the 60's and 70's he thought. _'One always feels born a generation too late they say_.' 

“You're standing in it.” She tipped back the second beaker, another memory swam up she swallowed it back, trying to bite back the greedy urge within her to take the bag beside her and rip into it. Her hand shook around the beaker. “I’m not used to feeding so frequently but unfortunately among humans its become a requirement.” His eyes lingered on that shake and she set down the glass quickly. 

“How long then was your longest fast?” 

“Just about five years, Let me guess you don’t approve.” Dracula took the last beaker and stared into the dark liquid before taking it into his mouth. He rolled it around on his pallet a long time.

“Try twenty five.” Agatha wasn’t sure she heard him correctly.

“You, restrain yourself? You expect me to believe that?”

"Just like you expect me to believe in one hundred and twenty three years Agatha VanHelsing the immortal vampire hasn't had _one_ whoopsies, with **that** hand shake?" Agatha was quiet, and this was enough of a victory, so he manuvered, continuing, "I'd be happy to be your Sin eater Agatha. You can always take comfort after all that I've done infinitely worse."

Actually that was a strange comfort, and perhaps why she'd sought him out, having been reminded by Lydia of shame still fresh. She shook off these thoughts however keeping herself stoic, instead focusing on what He'd said to her.

"When Harker joined you, you were very old by his account."

"Yes, I'd grown bored with the local cuisine, but my last had been by chance a Englishmen travelling the country. It gave me a taste for it, a taste for the new world, and then the old held no interest to me."

"That was when you began your move." She said, thoughtfully.

“Aging takes it course, quicker the younger you are in my experience."

"Mine as well, as if the decay catches up."

"It gets better the older you get. You age slower, but of course your victims will take the brunt of it when you do feed. Sleep I've found is the only natural preserver.” Agatha couldn’t deny her own curiosity, she was always slave to her desire and it bubbled up now despite herself.

“Of course you don't dream when you sleep?” 

“No,” He was puzzled by this inquiry, remembering she'd mentioned dreams before. “Why, do you?”

“Jung believed dreams were a construct of the archetypes, the collective unconscious driving us, shaping us.” Agatha absently, a way of not fully answering his question.

“You’ve been indulging in the psychology majors.” He said, “Dreams are just figments. They mean nothing.” Another bubble issued up from the submerged head of Amanda.

“I wish that would assure me as I’ve been having nightmares as of late.” 

“What of?”

“What else but death? Loss of control. Typical of a nun, I know.”

“But not typical of a Vampire.” 

“Perhaps we are not all cut from the same cloth.”

They were quiet for a beat or two.

“So what is it you’ll do with me once we find the source of this pathogen?” Dracula changed beats, and resuming his work with Amanda he pulled her by her hair, allowing the blood to drip off. She’d need a good rinse off to see the progress. 

“To be frank, I haven’t thought much about it. “

“How comforting.” He said absently, if not apathetically. He dropped Amanda's head into the sink which was built into the stainless steel top and turned on the water.

“If you continue to be a beneficial asset, I see no reason to box you away if that's what you're thinking. The undead have many secrets to reveal." Dracula shrugged without feeling. Everything got boring eventually. It was Agatha's turn to change tack. “How is Sinclair doing?” She saw the tension around his eyes. He began squeezing out Amanda's hair and tying it into something like a messy topknot bun. 

“The lamb is back with her flock.” He replied tersely. “I’m sure you’ve read the reports.” 

“Is the wolf finding himself lonely?” She teased tearing off the tab of one of the bags of blood Lydia had brought. No need to waste the glass. 

“Modern women." He muttered as a curse. "Save their life and you get a slap. No room left for chivalry” He repeated roughly his previous sentiments but she could see his ego had been injured genuinely. She personally greatly enjoyed that part of the recording, however she chose not to rub salt on the wound by reminding him just this once.

“You can’t expect humans to enjoy the company of creatures like us, not after what she saw. We unnerve them, and so we should.” It was the first time that Dracula heard her refer to them as the same species. She drank her blood back quickly. Too quickly to savor. And she'd called him a glutton? There was a tinnier scent to that one, like it was off somehow though Agatha didn't seem to notice.

“Lydia doesn’t seem to mind yours.” He saw as he said that he struck a nerve and dug. “She was your lover once wasn’t she?” Agatha crumpled the now empty blood bag and stood, face becoming cold and neutral again. What had she been thinking coming in here anyways? “So sensitive. Don’t worry **you** didn’t give it away, it's how she looks at you when she thinks no one is watching. Her smell changes a little. Becomes something like… Orange's. Is that how she tastes?” The idea of Dracula scenting Lydia let alone _tasting_ stoked an instinctual rage.

“You’ll leave her alone.” _Or else._ Her grim eyes promised. 

_Ooh there's the fire_. He thrilled basking in the coaxed flames. He wanted to see how _hot_ he could make her.

“Looks like I’m not the only wolf missing their lamb. We are so much alike you know, do you ever wonder what it would be like to fuck?”

The question came out of left field, she remembered in the dream how his arm coiled around her belly pulling her tight…

He drove on, his predatory instincts sensing that moment of hesitation. She’d lapsed for a moment in remembering who he was and he was well due to remind her. 

“The first time I fed on you as a human I’d aroused you, it was the first fantasy we shared, do you remember?” His hands were wet with water, Amanda was left in the sink as he took a drying cloth, she held her ground glaring up at him. 

“I doubt you have man enough in you left to preform such a task beyond your own mind.” She glowered, teeth flashing white with hostile storming grey eyes, Dracula smiled.

“I could show you." He promised "It takes quite a bit of blood and the right _mood_ , but you’ve always had a way of exciting me. Lydia could join us.”

She growled, and it sent a dark thrill through him as he saw her teeth change, all that culture and careful severity a veneer. Hadn’t he told her that once?

_‘The sophistication of a gentleman, Agatha, is **always** a veneer.’_

“There you are Agatha.” He murmured, _so long alone_. He was torn between titillation and that forlorn sense of longing. Was this how he looked to others he wondered, beautiful and monstrous? Agatha stepped back from him, regaining herself and her human composure and the Count felt a little disappointment. “We could have so much fun together you know, we could probably rule the world.”

“Ruling oneself holds more power than ruling the world Count.” She spat and threw the remaining blood bag at him. “Enjoy your lunch, I expect your report on your findings. I have business to attend to.”

The door closed on the cold sterile room and she had left behind her a wake of disappointment. Amanda was looking at him. There was something mocking in her eyes.

“What are you looking at?” He sneered at the eerie blue eyes. She needed another dip. He sighed as he picked her up and put her in the bowl and retrieved Agatha's blood bag. 

Splitting it left a familiar tinny smell and he hesitated curious before dumping it into the bowl. It was familiar that smell, but he couldn't quite place it.

* * *

Every once and awhile she had the feeling of eyes on her. Not unusual, when you were observed at every angle within a glass box, but the feeling was distinct. It was a cool touch at the back of your neck making your hair rise. She kept her head down, fearing turning and seeing him there. She must have made a face because Wilson would subtly shift around her, brush against her knee, or her shoulder or pat her back, the weird part was she let him. Even appreciated the gesture. 

On day four of their confinement they were planning on the bar that they were going to raid, taking bets on how many shots of tequila they could do when Wilson loudly announced he couldn’t just drink any _one_ of them under the table, but _all of them combined_. Too much ego to stand they all locked gazes sharing the single purpose. There was going to be a party after this.

On the fifth day Lydia came in and she wasn’t alone. They all stood to attention, curious of the young stranger.

“How's everyone feeling today?” She asked, seeming to bear good news.

“Right as bloody rain.” Wilson said, eyeing the lean young man at Lydia’s arm. 

“Got something for us?” Dane asked, impatient, Lydia smiled in understanding the soft lines of her face crinkling at the corners.

“I do, we’ve gotten the results back and we are pleased to say you're cleared of the danger zone.” They all let out whoops Wilson gathering Clara around the neck with one arm, and Mikel with the other making them laugh and elbow him in the guts to get him to stop. Lydia let them have their moment before she dropped the bad news.

“You three are clear to go, just take these _strictly.”_ She held out the pills. “You’ll be required to check in and take them under observation. The warmth of the room faded to a cold gust. “I’d also like to introduce Jack Seward, he’s just been taken on as an active Councillor.”

A series of groans escaped each of the members.

“A fucking shrink?” Wilson spat disgusted. Jack Seward looked progressively uncomfortable but cleared his throat.

“I understand your hesitancy, but I look forward to getting to know each of you.” This only elicited more discontented grumbles.

“What about Clara?” Clara was surprised to hear Mikel speak up, he was the quietest of them, always playing with his cards and watching out the corner of his eye.

“Miss Sinclair contracted a separate form of the virus.” She turned to speak directly at Clara whose expression had fallen. “You’ll need to remain under observation a little longer. But you’ll all be expected to have a session with Mr. Seward.” The boys exchanged looks not accepting the medication. 

“You know, I just got this bed comfortable for me.” Mikel said, giving Dane a **look** , who caught on instantly in agreement.

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t mind the extra little vacation.” Dane said to Wilson.

“Aye, and I’m rather fond of the nurse who watches me piss and shit, a real connection. I’d give her notice lest to break ‘er heart.” Wilson coughed, Clara was positively touched. 

“You’re saying you’d like to stay?” Lydia asked incredulously. “Well we were going to offer Clara special designation and to have access to the mess hall and work out rooms with some supervision. She would’ve had a guard assigned to her. We could reinstate you for the time being and rotate you between your regular posts if you'd consider that?” 

The men were all agreeing, Clara didn’t know what to say, so she kept quiet.

“Considering your schedules will be open I expect each of you to pay me a visit this week. I look forward to speaking with you.” Jack Seward took his exit with a polite almost sheepish kind of smile.

“The appointment is _non negotiable_.” Lydia told them just in case they were thinking otherwise. Then she handed out the bottles to each man. “Take these with your meals, for the next week. If you miss any its very important you let us know immediately. You’ll be expected to report to regular blood screenings daily. Understood?”

“Understood.”

“Aye.” 

And a shrug from Mikel. 

Then Lydia was gone and they were left alone. Clara looked at them all but they seemed to each be preoccupied with something or other, avoiding her gaze, her mouth opened, a thanks on her breath when Dane spoke up.

“Got to take a piss.” 

“Eh, I've been holding a shit all morning!” Snapped Wilson who made a move at Dane and the two began to tussle. She gave a look at Mikel who’d leaned back on his gurney and began shuffling his cards. She wanted to say something but didn’t know what.

“Dane and I regret how we acted.” He said quietly, out the side of his mouth.

“He made it that way on purpose. For fun.” She was not talking about Dane, Mikel didn’t look up from his cards.

“Aye, but it was up to us to stick together, you kept your head clear down there… we didn’t.” He sighed, the lines around his mouth deep and worn. Mikel had the scraggly look of a Finnish, or Norwegian, hooded eyes and a mouth long and low on his face, giving him a look of somber observation. He was a quiet man who chose his words carefully. “Wil told us how he got pinned in the end, and how you could have let the Count take you out.” Clara shook her head.

“Any of us would have gone back.” She insisted, and Mikel nodded.

“Exactly. Just any of us would.” He looked up at her eyes solemn and flecked with hazel saying everything that needed to be said and more. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The delay hasn't been in 'vein' ha- I mean vain- this story has seen some major renovations over the past few days! Some trimming here and there you could say along with some nips and tucks that have everything prepared to come neatly together in a much more satisfactory way I think than I had originally planned. Taking a breath and stepping back while I worked on my other fic Reserata Carcerum brought me back with fresh eyes.   
> There may be a 'delay' again after this chapter as I need to do some heavy edits to make sure its all 'flowing' right. 
> 
> Little more Agatha and Dracula here as well :)  
> How did you guys like it? Clara as you can see is feeling quite frigid towards the Count right now, which might not have been what you all expected.


	15. Sharing is Caring

**Chapter 15**

**Sharing is Caring**

* * *

Clara's lungs burned, a dull ache to her knuckles and deep in her muscles which quivered ready to react. Wilson was a like a hammer, but she was quick and he was grunting and winded like a bellows already. Veins danced on his temples, a his arms swinging, he was an orangutan ready to grab her. He lunged, and she sidestepped, from the corner of her eye catching an observer. She did a double take, only to see it was Lydia tapping her wrist with a lifted brow.

_'Shite, right. Counselling.'_

Wilson, either not noticing, or simply taking advantage of her slipped attention, grabbed her and flipped her down onto the mat. 

The wind knocked out of her so hard she wheezed quickly tapping out.

He released her immediately, beating his chest. her head, heart, and entire body seemed to pulse and throb in rolling waves through her, the pressure of exertion in her head an ache then ebbing slowly. 

"If you're done being an **ape** I've got an appointment." She muttered

"Aye I got you fair and square kitty cat! Just wait till I rub it in Mikel's face." Mikel was the best fighter out of any of them, to be fair Clara rarely won any fights but lately she had been able to give pretty good these days. Maybe it was just her, or maybe not but ever since the infection she'd just had a lot of energy, and she swore she was faster, though perhaps it was just her newfound dedication and abundance of time. She was reluctant to put any weight on her suspicion, the only evidence being that since they’d started sparring she'd actually managed to hold her own and exhaust her teammates on occasion.

"Like he'll require proof and want to see it in person, but that means you'd have to replicate it, which I'm not so worried about." She said loftily, her accent slipping slightly. He pulled her up sweat gleaming on his brow. 

"Think I can't?" His caterpillar eyebrows wiggled like they were about to inch off his broad face.

"Oh I know you can't." Clara challenged unable to keep from grinning.

It was a good distraction before 'therapy' anyways.

* * *

Jack had been interviewing the team throughout the week. It had been something of an ordeal.

From Wilson who wouldn’t shut up about the intricate details of his last bar crawl and bathroom visit, to Mikel’s quiet card shuffling and one shrug responses to his questions. Dane was more forthright but no less pleased to be present, speaking in clipped monosyllables and never elaborating.

Clara was last but not least. She was the real reason he was there after all, but it had been discussed to not isolate her specifically. According to Agatha Clara had also been invaded by a foreign entity. He’d been reviewing the reports, and more than that the footage of her and Dracula. He wasn’t sure he liked what he saw. But then again he wasn’t sure about who Clara was either and didn’t want to jump to conclusions until he’d actually seen and spoken to her face to face.

Finally she was there, making a knock at the door. It opened and brought with it a wave of pungent smell so strong that he was brought back to the boys locker room and his high school gym class. Wilson raised his brow through the open door, bulging arms crossed and gave him a single smirk and raised brow look that said _‘good luck ya cockscum git.’_

Luckily the odor mostly cut off when the door was closed, though it clung faintly to Sinclair it was a tamer scent more akin to ocean brine and musk that lingered on bed sheets… As he observed her he tried to shake out that thought from his head completely. That is the association with Clara and bed sheets. Her gaze was cool and clinically disinterested, and he was now her doctor and the fact that she was really quite attractive and that there was something very fascinating about watching how she moved and looked about a room was really totally a completely professional interest.

He cleared his throat.

“Please, make yourself comfortable.” He invited her into his little dark sparse looking office. “I hope Lydia didn’t remove you from anything important?” He aimed for amicable gesturing her to take a seat in the armchair supplied.

“Nothing of import Sir.” She responded formally. Sweat gleamed on her collar bone. He knew that the sparring had become a part of the newly _inseparable_ groups routine. 

“There is no need for such formalities, you may call me Jack if you’d like.” He resisted gulping as her cold gaze having found her seat resumed to look at him, narrowed as if in assessment and then seeming to find whatever it was she was looking for they flicked away in dismissal. As if she’d assessed him and found him wanting. He straightened his posture mouth dry. Clara arranged herself in her seat, hands quiet in her lap, posture neither open or closed off. Neutral.

“I’m here, so, what would you like to talk about?” Brisk, and cool, Jack preoccupied himself but neatening her file he had been going over.

“You of course,”

“I can’t imagine you haven’t read my file.” She said blankly. _‘Oh boy’,_ Jack thought and gave her another good look. Pushing past his own discomfort he slid now into his clinical role as one might slip on a glove. ‘ _Defensive- indicates vulnerability.’_ He’d watched a lot of videos, he’d never seen her looking quite so… unnatural, as if her neutrality was forced. The cool of her eyes hiding barely restrained resentment and disdain and suspicion. Looking at her was looking at a wall of thorns, but there had to be a sweet spot, a soft spot- that is some topic which she was not sensitive to and by that way he might gain some camaraderie. Some how he knew that this was going to be a new type of hell and cleared his throat.

“Well lets just begin wherever your comfortable…” Her expression and lingering aloof silence told him that there was no comfortable starting place. They were definitely going to need another session.

* * *

Dracula had been bemoaning not having enough material to experiment with. Sherry had been immolated for humane reasons, but also because she kept a very strict protocol surrounding the virus. Samples, closely kept only, the least amount of moving hungry things lurking about the better. Far more could go wrong in her experience. It was bad enough having two vampires around. Clara's tests were also cause for concern, viral markers remained encoded into her DNA though they seemed dormant, as if the silver treatment had forced it out or simply put in stasis the effect it had begun. 

Agatha had been running her own tests out of sight of the Count and so far introducing Clara's blood to living blood had no effect. Though long term effect was still unknown, hence the unease of placing her back on the roster. Hearing a positive sign from Jack would have also gone a long way, which is what their appointment that day was to review. If only _he_ wasn’t hovering.

“I’d like to move ‘ahead’ with Amanda.” Dracula always seemed to know the worst time to arrive and badger her, she was expecting at any moment Jack to arrive and give her the rundown of his professional opinion. “I’m beginning to get bored.”

“You’re always bored.” Agatha leveled him a skeptical unsympathetic look. “And bored as you may be I can’t imagine you are looking forward to playing host again.” He wanted to experiment with connecting to Amanda. Simplest would be a blood transfusion, she doubted he was intending to kiss her at least. 

“Worried I’ll go rogue?” She sighed, but truth be told shed been anticipating this. They’d gotten no where ‘smoking out the fox’. Their leads for the boy were turning up dry. She too was getting agitated, she was snapping more frequently and less patient, less cautious, her only relief was in her little mini fridge which already stood empty _‘I’ll have to ask Lydia for more_.’ She made a note, but redirected her slipping focus on Dracula with a dismissive wave.

“The head has been moved to a more secured room,” In case Dracula became a vehicle, it was specifically designed to keep something like him inside. “Lydia is only wrapping up the final details.”

Dracula hadn’t expected it to be so easy and was almost disappointed. He could see Agatha’s attention wandering, noticed that she hadn’t changed her shirt from the previous day and that she was clenching and unclenching her hand and looking slightly _sallow_. Even for undead standards. 

“And what about my materials request?”

“Not this again.”

“Two minds are better than one-” She gave an impatient look to the door and the clock and back again and he realized she was expecting someone. “-are you trying to get rid of me?” 

“Yes, believe it or not I have more to do than **nanny** you. I have two entire teams hired for that task for that very reason.” The new ones were sloppy little things, not one had been bothered by a tickling spider or rats nesting in pillow cases. They slept like innocent babes, he was being a model prisoner wrapped so much up in his work lately. Really they just weren’t worth the bother.

“Is it Lydia-?” He began but was interrupted by the knock upon the door and craned around with interest.

Jack was just on time. Of course he was. Agatha fixed a smile which was more like a grimace and waved him inside.

“Come in Dr. Seward.” Agatha muttered and stood, gesturing to Dracula to get up, to which he refused.

Jack entered and stiffened upon seeing she was otherwise engaged, or more specifically _who_ she was otherwise engaged with. Dracula threw him a dismissive disappointed look as if not seeing what he’d expected to he’d lost all interest.

“I can come back later Doctor.” He muttered stiffly, his hair raised as if by instinct. Actually it was this unease which drew back Dracula’s interest, his heart beat and the smell of _loathing._

“Wait- Have we met before?” Dracula asked, genuinely oblivious as he scoured him up and down. Searching for the source of the familiarity and rolling his tongue in his mouth. _No I haven’t tasted him_. Jack’s gaze widened indignantly.

“Are you _serious_?” He sputtered.

“Dracula was just leaving Jack, my apologies.” Agatha coughs and looked pointedly at the Count who smiled brightly without the intention of leaving at all.

“Actually I’m quite comfortable.” He said, crossing his legs and straightening his trouser line. Jack was holding something he realized, a folder that read. . . 

“Oooh is this about little Mary?” He snatched the file folder Jack was holding with Clara R. Sinclair labelled upon it and began to open it leaving jacks fingers stinging with the speed it had been removed and blinking bewildered then angry to see him holding it and about to open it. Agatha, however was also quick and she snapped the folder shut and suddenly the little folder was hostage between them.

“Your going to tear it.” He complained but refused to release it.

“Jack has other copies I’m sure.” _Jack_ . there was something familiar about that name _. ‘Kiss me jack.’_ With a sudden snap he recognized the little waif and his face opened with this realization.

“Wait- Is that _Lucy’s_ Jack?” He said at first laughingly and, as if thinking about his his expression darkened to suspicion. “Have you been the one _poisoning her to me?”_ He said with sudden edge to his voice, the paper beginning to tear gently his voice edged dangerously.

Agatha hissed and threw up her hands. She was too bloody busy to be playing tug of war with him. 

“Jacks here on **my** request. Sit down Jack if you intend on staying.”

“Those are private notes-” Jack bleated reaching out quite stupidly only to have Dracula flipped it open, easily moving out of his grasp and hardly looking up before he settled himself. “Ma’am there are very personal observations in there this is _hardly_ appropriate-” But Dracula began reading in a loud clear voice cutting him off.

> “Despite Sinclair mental soundness it is in my professional opinion that Sinclair shows symptoms of PTSD. In session she has remained aloof and dismissive-”

Dracula laughed muttering- _‘_ _that's my Mary'_ under his breath before continuing

> “-however in reviewing her history and the traumatic incidents involving the murder of her parents to which she was privy to-”

_“_ Ma’am!”

“He’s clearly intent to have his way Jack, let him finish.” 

> “And while Sinclair may be capable of resuming general duty with soundness of mind, It is in my professional opinion that her duties will be hindered in a singular respect. . .”

Here he fell silent and he looked at Jack with a cold gleam to his eyes.

> “That is that her duties in regards to the ‘asset’ as in reviewing the recordings I suspect that Sinclair's PTSD stems from undisclosed sexual abuse likely caused by the 'incident' or surrounding incidents in her childhood and triggered by - _The counts recent advances?!_ ” 

The folder hit Jack square in the face , sending his glasses askew and sending him scrambling to capture the papers which fell away scattering. Agatha sighed.

“You hired him on purpose.” He accused. Agatha ignored him and gave Jack an apologetic look.

“Leave those here jack. I will take your recommendations under consideration.” Jack flustered fumbled to gather the work but a stone in his throat swelled and venomously he looked up at Dracula once from this with a nasty curl to his lips.

“As to what you accuse me of Count, I assure you- your quite poisonous enough on your own.” He said and rose hotly with his now bruised papers continuing boldly. “If Sinclair's well being is to be taken account Its my recommendation that she be removed from duty for the 'asset'.” He said 'asset' with singular disgust, like a bristling porcupine.

“It **will** be taken into consideration Jack. Thank you.” Dracula was silent as Jack let himself out, him having slapped the file on the desk and holding his head high as he strutted out of the room with a waspish snapping of the door. 

There was a long moment of silence before Agatha picked up her radio to page Lydia. 

“Lydia, give Clara the good news. Have her approved for duty.” 

“Copy that, I’m sure Dracula will be pleased.” Came her crackling response. Agatha wasn’t certain about that, she spoke to Dracula, half conversationally, have a barb.

“I suppose no good deed goes unpunished-” Except she realized she was talking to an empty room. Dracula was gone.

* * *

“You’re cleared. Congratulations.” Lydia said with a smile, handing Clara her bottle of pills. “Take these with or without a meal, _no_ missing dosages.” She said in mock sternness, Clara smiled and nodded resolutely and obediently shook out a pill. She hesitated a moment, seeing these capsules were different. Gel caps filled with an almost black like fluid. Lydia seemed to notice the hesitation.

“It's a higher concentration formula.” She explained, it was all Clara needed to know, she tipped back the pill dry.

“Don’t forget you also have another appointment with Mr. Seward, he tells me you cut a little early out of the last one.” She was like a mother hen, Clara resisted the impudent urge to roll her eyes and instead nodded again.

“Of course.”

“Right, enjoy your shift.” She said and with that Clara was ushered back out into the hallway to where the boys waited.

“I’m clear.” She told them with a smile, tucking the pill bottle inside her jacket pocket. The boys made happy, congratulation noises.

“You know what that means!” Wilson announced and they all nodded.

“Tonight we get shit faced.” Mikel responded perfectly deadpan, they all laughed.

* * *

The ‘new shift’ was waiting for them to arrive. It was strange for Clara being back at the manse. Since leaving the institute, the closer they got to their being off shift and leaving for drinks Dracula’s mood had soured. He’d been avoiding her she realized and quite frankly she was actually relieved by that. Looking at him was like looking at a hot coal too close to your face. She kept having to turn away, unable to avoid her growing discomfort.

Upon arrival at the house Dracula seemed to slink in, for all all the world a kicked dog. She had the idea that he’d been listening to their eager mutterings all day about the pub crawl and was sulking. 

The men parted to get ready, the ‘transfer of power’ occurred between them and the next team. Clara waited until Dracula slipped into his room before she crept into hers and began to change. 

No more cotton tee’s. God how long had it been since she’d worn jeans? She shook off her dusty favorite leather bomber jacket and sighed slipping it on. She tossed her pills on her desk absently and ran her fingers through her hair.

“Eh you ready?!” Wilson bellowed from downstairs Clara was about to call out she was, opening the door, but another got to it first.

“Absolutely.” Clara stepped back in disbelief as the master suite door swung open and ‘He’ emerged wearing a neat suit jacket, white shirt beneath opened slightly at the collar with his hair neatly slicked back and his thick brows rising as he looked her over. Before leaning over the railing calling to the upturned mens faces below.

“So where to boys?” 

Downstairs she was expecting to have a strip torn off her hide from the boys but they almost looked like they had been expecting it. No scratch that, the other team was waiting and ready to go. There was a touch of accusation in her eyes as she looked at each of their faces.

“Are you kidding me?” She mouthed, half whispering.

“Seemed only fitting since he saved our arses,” Wilson shrugged, Dane didn’t bother to look apologetic and Mikel only appeared a little sheepish.

“That and I am more than happy to be our designated driver” He added grinning and looking quite eager. Team two had sullen uneasy expressions. They weren’t allowed to drink on the job. Have you ever been pub crawling perfectly sober? 

“The days young, and I plan to be shitfaced before the end of it, lets move.” Dane said in his brittle blank kind of way, like a stiff army general getting his troops moving, they all stirred to obey.

“Words to live by.” Clara muttered to keep back the riot of unease rolling through her, but a feeling equal to it rose. Determination to not let this affect her in the least. She was going to get shitfaced, and have a good time and **he** wasn’t going to ruin it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo,  
> This part of the series is going to be wrapped up in far fewer chapters than I initially expected. I had a lot written but none of it quite sat well together and after having some space from it I found a very succinct way to bring it all together for the glorious 'season two' finale (if we are imagining the three episodes as season one of course). Don't worry, we've already gotten 'approval' for season 'three' ;) So anything not wrapped up, or built upon you can expect shall be in the next sequence!


	16. Hair of the Dog

**Chapter 16**

**Hair of the Dog**

* * *

Shit faced was a word that lacked _feeling_ until that night for Clara. They’d spent the night reminiscing about the lads lost. They had gotten kicked out of two bars before they landed in the third, sloshed, Mikel already with a black eye from the blow he’d taken in the last bar. She cried like a baby as Wilson told a story about Jesse, and she wasn’t the only one who shed tears shamelessly that night. 

Somehow, they ended up at the strip club that Clara and the count had visited in what felt like a century ago and up until then she’d been able to relatively ignore Dracula completely.

“Saaandra!” Clara called out to one of the dancers. “She likes me!” Clara insisted, but for good measure she waved several bills around enticing the dancer closer on the stage. It wasn’t even 8 clock. They’d begun at 3pm in a pub halfway across town. 

Crew two, who had to endure the ordeal horrifyingly sober looked exhausted and vaguely traumatized, while Dracula was merely soaking in the ambiance, guiding things apparently here or there and _maybe_ slipping in a sip hear or there. 

“Oh there she is.” He announced familiar himself with a particular member of staff who lite up underneath the gaudy grimy lights. “Darling how are you?” Dracula called out to foxy little Leia who brightened like a Christmas tree.

“Orlok!” She mooned, and several of the men chuckled, though she didn’t seem to notice. “Please follow me.” She said bustling eagerly to the private room. Wilson threw Clara over his shoulder, as Sandra, smiling in good humor, plucked a bill out from between her fingers.

“Saaaandraaa-” She said forlornly.

The next thing she remembered was being on a leather couch sipping something sweet like pineapples or something and Mikel singing a warbly Johnny cash song with shocking amounts of gusto. 

“You have the soul of a poet!” Dracula exclaimed and Mikel rosily rose his beer glass in a cheer. “Whose next?” He asked and Mikel the traitor pointed at Clara and followed with a belch. 

“Whaaat no, I canna sing, im leik an ol’ cat lady scratch’n.” Clara objected but apparently this was not to be, she was yarded off the couch by a drunken Dane and pushed up. But Clara flailed wildly and desperate, her gaze landed on Dracula.

“Him! He hassn’t one- one!” Leia was on his lap, a little anemic by then but very dreamy indeed, Dracula looked up licking red lips looking alternatively pleasantly suffused.

Wilson took the lady off his lap and onto his own, she swooned back blinking dreamily as if she’d just washed ashore upon some vikings isle. 

“Ye heard the lady!” He said, cuffing the Count on his arm oafishly. 

He made a dance of seeming very displeased by this, rising slowly. Mikel raised his beer in salute and Dane released her reluctantly. Clara was already swiveling around for another corner to dive into when she was taken by the elbow and she squeaked as she was pulled onto the stage.

“A duet it is!” He announced and Dane choked on his beer in laughter. 

“No! Oh god, your evil!” She wailed, on the verge of collapse.

“You have no, idea.” He said grinning as he selected the song looking very pleased with himself. He picked up the microphone and his arm around Clara’s shoulders pulled her to face the screen. “Ready?”

God no.

Dracula began-

“ _Don’t go breaking my heart_ -”

He began to croon swaying her to the music and causing a tidal wave of booze to sway in her stomach. He shoved the mic in front of her face and she squinted at the words.

_“I couldn’t if I tried.”_

_“Oh honey if I get restless-”_

_“-Baaaby your not that kind.”_

She sort of blacked out (to her relief) but the next moment she was warbling along with him, unsteady on her feet and quickly growing nauseous.

_“Ohhoo nobody knows it, no body knows it!”_

_“Right from the start-!”_

_“I GAVE YOU MY HAAAART. Oooh I gave you my heart.”_

_“So don’t go breaking my heart.”_ Oh he was loving this. If he could read thoughts she was making sure hers were spicy, extra drunken spicy Clara..

 _“I won’t go breaking your heart-” 'I'll bloody put a stake in yeah- ya-'_ Unfortunately before this thought could reach its proverbial climax in the next blink Clara found herself stumbling into a derelict bathroom in order to bring up several new species of mix drinks.

She fished herself out of the bowl, weak and needing some air. People were faceless shadows in the dark and feeble as she was she hadn’t been prepared for a body to bar hers against the wall. Hands groping, driving into her crotch while a head arched to her neck. She couldn’t have picked him out of a line up, she stomped, almost instinctively and shoved sending the man, whoever he was stumbling back and Clara lurching off in the other direction, like a moth drawn to the glow of the exit sign she burst out into the ally, air cool but stained with piss, vomit and gassy scent of overripe trash. 

She caught herself on the metal railing, heaving once more, but bringing up nothing but a quivering stomach. Her head throbbed and the world still lurched in stops and starts in her consciousness. But her heart was going, she scrubbed the violating mouth from her neck and shuddered, which is exactly when Dracula came upon her. Laying a hand on her shoulder.

She spun swinging and socked him soundly in the mouth, then realized who she'd hit and instead of repenting swayed indignantly too drunk to notice her smarting fist.

“You! O-course its you-bloddy pervert-” She drawled drunkenly, breath misting in the air, a low drizzle was beginning

“That is quite presumptuous.” He glowered, having witnessed the little debacle (he certainly hadn't been following her).

“Pres-presump-tous is thinking a bloody dog like you could be trusted with anything, rat bloody turk sodding bastard!” She pushed him. She was five foot four and he Six foot three, without even the drunkeness it was a comical act. The historical insult was a surprising flavor however and he found his temper frayed. He grabbed her by her face and drove her into the railing.

“You forget yourself.” He was very close to her face, her blue eyes suddenly surprisingly clear looking up at him, he could feel her panic surging and there was suddenly a hopeless curl to her mouth.

“Why’d you ‘ave ta ruin it?” She asked frankly anger and something like grief in those blues, something like... betrayal. He observed this all with some interest, but battled his own internal urges. He longed to bite her. Her pulse was a surging drunken current beckoning. One bite and he’d know everything have _everything_ . No need to play the useless game, he’d **own** her, she’d be a part of him-. These thoughts fueled his desire to press closer, Clara’s hand limply objected upon his chest. He might have kissed her again, only because that was his choice but then she spoke quietly, not unlike that child voice in the shadow of the apartment. “I trusted you. What an idiot-” It was a half thought muttered by a half conscious mind and her eyes lulled closed

Having been nearly absorbed in his increasing desire all at once Dracula returned to himself. To the alley where they stood in the wet drizzle among the piss and waste and the scent of vomit on Clara who shivered drunkenly unaware of how wet she was getting. Suddenly he was no longer very aroused, but vaguely disgusted if not perturbed he ever had been at all. 

He let her go.

“You look like a drowned rat, and smell worse.” He told her and she blinked realizing she was free and yes she was actually very cold and shuddered. What was happening? She looked up to see his face was turned away eyes distant and drunken as she was felt like she’d missed something. 

“Wot?” He grunted annoyed and grabbed her icy hand in his and pulled her.

“Come back inside for a drink on me, I think Sandra was looking for you.” At this Clara looked up with watery eyed half drowned interest.

"Sandra?" She repeated keenly, allowing herself to be pulled along back inside.

* * *

No one had seemed to notice their little departure, nor marked much upon their damp return.

The next thing she knew she was being brought back in the manse

The world was drifting by Clara in pleasant numbing flashes of consciousness. She stumbled on the stairs and Wilson caught her with a barbarous cry throwing her over her shoulder as she laughed not even caring about his hand on her ass as Mikel and Dane drunkenly helped themselves into their converted bunkhouse, a spare room on the top floor. Clara had her own room, separated for her own privacy. It was a converted small office which had a connecting master bathroom to the master suite something that had been a great cause for anxiety for a long while. Now just returning she'd forgotten about it entirely.

“You're like a bloody boat!” She giggled thrashing as she hit Wil across his broad back and kicked, he stumbled drunkenly as her thrashes sent him swaying off balance.

“Oiiiii oi oi, stop rockin the ship, the waves are rough tonight.” His brough rolled with his drunken gait. Two to the left, three swaying right. Like a big sloshing ocean. Clara was lulled.

Suddenly she was getting dropped in her cot, 

“Ooof!” Her insides slosh about as she bounced Wilson had tipped forward at the motion, having to catch himself steady by gripping either side of the bed which might as well have been a child's bed in comparison to the large man who risked toppling over. “Are you tucking me in?” She heard herself say.

“Shall I?” Then he was kissing her. It was a strange feeling, her mouth invaded, sharing the taste of Cigarettes and the smell of liquor. His body was heavy on top of her. She wriggled, trying to catch her breath as he broke away from her mouth. Her heart began again that terrible gallows thud of dread. “Oh Clara.” He panted, gathering her up like a doll his hands were so big, his hand pushing up her shirt greedy for the flesh

“ **Wil.** ” She felt hot and cold at once, her body was responding to his mouth and touch, but her mind was cycling in and out. She felt caught in time frozen, some conscious part of her hissing angrily at her. _It's nothing like before, nothing like before._ Memories lingered malignant near the surface. They clawed her, choked her, froze her. _Stop_ it said, _Please stop_. But it had seized her throat with its paralyzing power and she struggled overwhelmed and unprepared.

“I’ve wanted you for so bloody long.” He rasped as his beard tickled and rubbed raw her creamy skin as he descended closer to her sex which he couldn’t quite reach due to the terrible smallness of the bed frame and his largeness. 

“Will I can’t.” She hissed into the dark of the ceiling. It was a plea and drunken sort of sorrowful feeling rising in her. Wil couldn’t hear her, or ignored her. She didn’t know which. He was peeling her pants down. She felt her jeans rolling away from her skin, baring it and her. Would he notice if she didn't move? Probably not.

He was going to fuck her, and she would have let him, simply because she couldn’t stop him. If she tried it would be more drama than what it was worth. It was fine. She told herself despite the burning in her throat like a scream suffocating. She’d survived worse and she could just drift off until it was over. They could still be friends afterwards, he wouldn’t know any better. 

But that's not what happened.

Instead Wilson started choking. The room was all darkness, darkness spliced with flashes of unconsciousness. The weight of his body left her suddenly and there was the sound of him hitting the floor. It took her too long to begin to piece together what was happening. It was **him**. She felt the hairs on her arms and neck rise, some instinct not dampened by booze.

“Don’t hurt him, Please Don’t.” She begged the darkness, fearing for another freeing her from the paralyzing fear for herself which had gripped her. Wilson had gone quiet, did he kill him? She felt sick, she couldn’t see, a part of her wanted to sink into the darkness, but the instinctual part made her move, made her grope around seeking. 

A cold hand gripped her almost feverishly hot skin. She felt it, felt it in the force of his grip around her wrist. She felt it in her bones, her instincts screamed it. She felt the bite of his nails ready to puncture, there was suddenly a hand at her throat, feeling her pulse. Her free hand clutched at his shirt. The linen crisp crushed now in her fist. She felt a surge of anger. Her head throbbed.

“Dracula-”

But he was gone. And her head throbbing she too disappeared into that dark. Her hand clutching still a tiny little button.

* * *

Wilson woke her.

“Clara, Clara,” He hissed, urgency summoning her back. She opened her eyes, her head throbbing and aching mouth fuzzy. “Thank Christ.” His face was bleary above her, the light too bright. He sat back and she hissed. He helped her sit up. “Take it easy now.” She was struggling to understand what was happening. She remembered the bar, the pub crawl and drinking her weight in booze. Coming home was a bunch of flashes, a feeling of Wilson's beard scratching her. 

She clutched at her chest suddenly to find it bare. Her stomach e flipped and her heart lurched. She was in her room, half naked with an equally half naked Wilson with dark circles beneath his eyes staring at her. 

“What the fuck?” She scrambled to cover herself. Nausea quickly followed. Her head lanced with pain and she felt the back of her head to find a big swollen bump where she’d hit it. Did she have a concussion?

“Easy now. Fuck if I remember.” He rasped, sounding like an eighty year old smoker. His throat was ringed with purple bruises, choke marks, the finger shaped bruises were unmistakable. Clara’s mind tumbled.

“Whats the time?” She asked

“0200.” Perfect. “You might have a concussion.” He said and she searched his face looking for answers. 

“Did you-?” She couldn’t remember if he’d thrown her or if she’d fallen. 

“Like I said, fuck if I know. If I did you gave as good as you got Lamb, sorry about that.” He said, touching his throat and clearing it with a pained expression.

“Aye.” She murmured, feeling like she was missing something as she rubbed the tender spot on her head.

“Maybe we should, uh forget this ever happened.” She suggested and attempted to rise. He reached out to help her and she let him. He looked reluctant to leave.

“You sure you're alright Lamb?” He looked pained, regretful. She nodded and attempted to smile.

“Looks like we both fucked up, I’m good Wil.” His hand still on her shoulder she put her stop and gave it a squeeze. ' _It's alright'_ it said to him, _whatever happened no harm no foul_. He nodded, looking relieved. He found his shirt and buckled up his jeans. 

“See you out there.” He said briskly and tucking himself in and buttoning up his shirt to his neck he quickly escaped the room. She was remembering the night in bits and pieces. As she rubbed her head she realized she was holding something and opened it to see a small black little button there. She stared at it a long while. Wilson hadn't been wearing a shirt with black buttons. She hadn't been either.

She kept it thoughtfully closed in her hand, realizing that not answer was to be summoned. She needed a shower, desperately. Retrieving her shower back she also caught sight of her medication and took one dry. _Plenty of alcohol for it to digest in_. She thought humorlessly. 

Her room was awkwardly attached to the Count's through the master suite bathroom which was more of a mirror-less tiled ‘shower room’, for not needing a toilet- he'd had it removed. Whether her room was designed to be some kind of closet or a little 'offshoot' office (or considering the size of the bathroom and the relatively minuscule size of her 'room, perhaps a bathroom closet?), she'd never quite figured out. Either way it was her 'bunker', and upon settling there she'd installed locks upon both her room entering the bathroom, and upon the door within that led to his rooms. 

Considering she had to unlock the bolts, she noticed that they were all locked as per usual upon her trip from her room into the bathroom, and with that comfort in mind continued with her task.

She stopped at the sink first, drinking the cold water greedily, eager to rid her mouth of the repugnance taste which had accumulated into something putrid as she'd slept. Toothbrush in hand she scrubbed vigorously, only stopping because she feared making her gums bleed. That was a no-no. 

Before hopping into the shower she hesitated, the locks on 'her' room had been secure. But what about his? She looked and saw that they were secured, and yet- for some reason she wasn't quite comforted. The little button blinked its little black eye at her from where she'd left it by the sink, like a thoughtful memento while she undressed and turned on the stream.

It was a luxury waterfall kind of shower and it blended seamlessly into the tiled room, without walls or curtains. Steam billowed up. The water was hot enough to sting, edging nearly to scalding. She groaned in pain as she stepped beneath. The water bordering pain was numbing, sterilizing her mind. She leaned against the wall and cleared the water from her eyes. Her arm outstretched palm flat on the tile she saw the purplish and small puckered indents. Nail marks. The steam was coiling in the room, thick, she blinked remembering a hand pressed against her throat- and then... like a muscle memory she remembered her hand grasping fabric.

The button. 

Clara gasped spinning around suddenly certain she wasn't alone.

Empty. The room was empty as it always was. It was just her and her stupid hammering heart. 

Clara finished showering and found her clothing and dressed. 

Between the shower and the dose of adrenaline it came, like the water streaming and rippling back, scalding as it did and leaving a mingling trail of raw pain and numb relief.

_Dracula._

* * *

Dressed and hair toweled she put away her bathroom bag until there was only the little button on the sink left, watching her with its singular dark eye. Seeming to judge her. She picked it up, thoughtful but reluctant, Clara decided something. She could have just gone back to her own room. Like with Wilson forget it ever happened.

Instead she found herself on his ‘doorstep’ facing the locks and bolts between his room and the bathroom. Luckily her head was aching so loudly there was no room for thought. Before she could question herself or her motives she knocked. 

There was no response. But she was certain he was there on the other side.

“Sir, may I come in?” She called and then sighed biting her lip and then more forcefully. “I’m coming in.” She announced.

“What is it Clara?” He almost sounded as if he’d had as bad of a sleep as she did. Opening the door to the permeating darkness was like stepping back though time and she swayed for a moment uncertain if she was still drunk. She steadied herself at the threshold.

“Is there a light switch? She asked stupidly, trying to feel around the walls.

“What makes you think I want the lights on?” Clara sighed, thinking maybe this was a mistake. Then suddenly the lights flashed on and he was beside her looking down at her with a kind of aloof disinterest. Clara awkwardly lowered her hands which had been blindly groping the walls in the dark, embarrassed.

“What?” He asked coolly. 

“I just wanted to say that -” Jesus what was it she wanted to say? Her mind was blank throbbing ache along with her throat and the rest of her body and she was on top of that probably pink from the heat of the shower, her blond hair a plume of frizzed blond fluff. “I think I might have been a tosser to you.” She managed and his brow rose, but she could see despite his expression his body was turned to her, he was listening. He was interested.

“Is that all?” He asked sounding bored, but she wasn't buying it. She swallowed around the knot in her throat and squeezed the little button for courage, despite her brain and body telling her to head for the hills and forget about it all.

“Well also that I sort of think you kept me out of trouble last night-”

“Is there a point to all this?”

“Yeah.” He waited. “Thanks for that.” She meant it even if it was like glass coming up, she was caught by the choking memory of helplessness trapped beneath Wilson and something to the effect must of played on her face, her eyes beginning to water. She despised feeling this way, she despised being in this room reminding her about it. And suddenly he was too hard to look at again.

She was replaying the feeling of waking to feel his mouth pushed on hers, unable to move, not knowing where she was. Her real fear, her real question bubbled up suddenly and escaped before she could think better of reserve- that little button digging into her palm as it came up.

“You don’t feel that way about me do you?” She needed to know she realized, and looked up at him, finding in his eyes cold distant pricks and something else too- buried beneath that- wounded like. 

Was he really so repulsive to her?

“What if I did?” He advanced a step snarling, eager to drive her cowering into he wall.

 _Break break break_.

She retreated a step, by instinct her arms raising but she wasn’t overcome as she was previously, she wasn’t drunk now, and she didn't have her head so far up her ass anymore. He continued speaking, voice a lurid suggestion, dangerous and alluring. “Perhaps that's what I want from you after all? Pretty. Little. _Clara_.” He never said her name, but she didn't shy away for the first time since she'd 'woken' up. Otherwise she would have 'seen' what was so obvious to her now before. In his eyes she saw and understood something, and it wasn't that thing she'd feared, not at all. Instead in those dark eyes was a nothing more than a _mirror_. 

Look at both of them. Snapping like wounded animals. He was as sensitive as she was and she was a _massive_ idiot.

“You don’t.” She said certainly, and his eyes narrowed and as if to challenge this he lifted his hand to skim the exposed collar of her neck, and up with the backs of his fingers observing now the purples that had bloomed from his touch on her flesh.

“Are you so sure about that Clara? Just look at all the pretty colors I made… How do you know I don't want to enjoy marking more of the canvass?” Despite her certainty it was difficult to untangle years worth of physical triggers, her skin prickled, her heart skipped and her pupils enlarged. Funny how the arousal response was so close to the fight or flight nervous system reaction. But Clara stepped back from herself, observing this without making it about ‘her’ even as his fingers skimmed up her throat to her mouth that was issuing a minty cool breath between bubble gum pink lips which too grew in flush.

“I am.” She intoned, struggling to sound firm, “at least it's not what you really want.” He was coming closer to her mouth, his breath stirring it.

“You think **you** know what I want? The whimpering little girl hiding in the dark.” His words impacted like a dull thud, threatening to break her composure as her head throbbed and he edged closer.

In dogs this was called _'posturing'_ and it could turn ugly if one dog was more submissive than the other. 

As he began to sneer, taunting her with his mouth close to hers she suddenly grabbed his collar and did everything her stupid body told her was the worst thing ever.

She pushed forward and kissed his mouth hard. 

Dracula stiffened. 

Clara broke off, red faced but her eyes opening to level him an absolutely stubborn determined look and seeing his bewildered look, his brows knit in consternation and seeing this she pressed her advantage. Springing on her toes, she pushed her mouth hard against his again. It was more like a punch than a kiss. He withdrew suddenly, a mild look of violation now and annoyance.

“Okay stop that-” He retracted his great height up so it was impossible for her to reach him at her five foot four smallness and glaring at her trying to figure out the game she was playing and how he might win it. Clara’s mouth and nose was faintly pink with this abuse and she had angry bloodshot watery eyes which made the blue bright and sharper than ever.

“I like you.” She blurted.

He stared at her, now he really was flummoxed.

“Excuse me?” Had he missed something?

“I mean- I like working with you." She amended, but continued like a freight train, steamrolling even herself. "No- you know what, I do like you- there I'll admit it! I thin your funny, and sort of interesting and-" The engines hot, she couldn't stop now, her face was reddening, she was getting to the worst of it which emerged screeching at top speed- “-I like bein'- bein' your partner, or your 'puppy' or whatever bloody names anyone wants to call it alright?!” and here she threw her hands up. She was scarlet red and crossing her arms and breathing like she’d sprinted up the stairs several times. That stupid little button like a sweaty hard stone in her fist still.

He stared at her. Absolutely out of his element suddenly and totally submerged in such foreign territory that he actually started breathing like a human for a moment. Why was she looking at him like that anyways, all **accusing**? Perhaps he should be gloating at this admission. It was afterall the perfect thing to hold above her head, some how use it to torture her after being such a rude, unconcioubaly ungrateful _brat..._ Instead he didn't feel like doing any of those things. Though he wasn't quite sure why or what to make of that, or her, all pink and edible as she was staring at him like- like whatever it is you call that kind of look.

She’d taken a breath and blinked those bright baby blues back up at him her chin jutting stubbornly as she rallied for round two, though it was without the passion of the first rant, having lost most of her steam there.

“I don’t like **men**.” She admitted, in a raw forceful way as if it was very difficult for her to say that. She looked then, properly into his eyes. She very rarely did that, looked right in his eyes but she did now and finally at that he was stirred. Stirred by her indigence, her fluffy stubbornness and stirred by how all that fierceness melted in that blue oasis to a quiet urgency. _do you understand?_ And he thought he did.

"You like be because I'm not a man." He said in realization and chuckled at that sweet irony all of a sudden. "All that talk of being a gentleman." Clara could have easily taken this all as mocking, or laughing at _her_ but for the first time since she entred there was real mirth and lightness dancing in those dark pits and she felt her tension leave her a little.

"Aye, I prefer my monsters polite though, yeah?" It was true. She had never thought of it, or acknowledged her comfort around Dracula before then, but there it was laid bare between them. Her 'truth': Men couldn't be trusted, no matter how well you knew one things could change. But dogs- and maybe monsters- you just needed to learn the signs. 

When she’d woken up she’d thought she’d been wrong about everything about Dracula. That maybe he was more man than beast. If she hadn't been so caught off guard and gotten lost in her own neuroses she would have realized how stupid she was being. 

"We're not Partners-" Dracula stated suddenly, drawing her out of whatever tender reverie she'd been slipping and putting her back on her toes at his serious look.

"What?"

"Your my _junior_ Partner." And he continued “-especially after that duet, _god_ -”

“Cat scratching?” She suggested feebly but tiny soda bubbles like in Perrier water was brewing in her belly amongst the empty sloshy alcohol. Happy, bubbly bubbles coming all the way up and working into her chest first, but would soon bubble in her throat too and in her fingers and toes. Dracula hadn't noticed, he continued arms crossed perfectly apathetic.

“Choking really, it was a kind of torture and I would know I used to be quite good at it.” 

“No doubt you still are Sir.” She said barely repressing the smile which thinned her lips. He finally managed to look at her again and this time to glare.

“You know I saved your life? Did I get _one_ thank you?” He waited, toe tappingly impatient, but instead she stared at his shirt collar (she'd noticed it was missing a button you see and was chewing avidly at her lip to keep from smiling widly and instead of thanking him she scuffed her foot and with a thick throat managed:

“It’s implied.” 

“ _Implied_?” He repeated incredulous and bordering on offended, except he was having quite the time, though he'd never admit it. Clara cleared her throat, beginning suddenly like a lecturer or a priest giving a sermon, with all the firmness and resolution she could muster to the words.

“In partnership- It’s _implied_ that we save each others arses gratitude or not and since I’m the ‘junior partner’ as you put it, seems like part and parcel bein’ a responsible _senior._ ”

“Yes well don’t push your luck- this-” and he gestured to his mouth. “Doesn’t do _charity_ -” 

Clara's haughty air evaporated and she half gasped, half choked out a scoff. was he kidding, _charity?_ _Has he seen how he eats??!_

“Charity?! Like your such a bloody-” He held his hand up suddenly.

“You know as much as I enjoy we do have somewhere to be.” He sensed her as he always sensed her and began across the room, half way he paused and looked at her expectantly. “Are you just planning on standing there all day, We have _appointments_ to keep you know.” Clara quickly moved to follow him.

* * *

Mikel had been nursing his black coffee when he’d seen Wilson stumble out of Clara's room looking more than hungover. He was on his second cup when the door opened to Dracula's suite and their asset emerged, but holding open the door to Mikel's surprise he ushered Sinclair out after him. Her hair poofed posture easy. Mikel continued his cup in silence nodding when she greeted him with a simple morning and gratitude for the hot coffee pot which she filled a cup of. Her air was strangely bubbly, he couldn't help notice. It made him want to sneeze and blink. 

"You drive today?" She asked. He nodded, blearily, sipping his coffee which was half whiskey pensive as ever. From the bathroom there was a violent noise of retching. Probably Wilson. 

It was a long drive. To the institute. Wilson snored violently, Dane had refused being crammed in the back and instead followed in a separate SUV. Clara snuck dozes here and there. Mikel caught from the rear view mirror the idle bobbing of her head slipping against Dracula's shoulder and how, almost politely he pretended ever not to notice.

The car finally jerking to a stop at the front. Clara and Wilson jerking awake with a start. He'd let them out at the front and drive around to the underground parking. 

"We'll meet ya in there." Clara assured Wilson stepping out of the cosy interior out to the stiff wicked fall chill. 

The sky was grey, but it was becoming something else. Wilson understood, immediately what was happening. Mikel, technically 'new' to the team, this was the first time observing the two, black in the shade of the morning walking across soggy fields side by side to stand nearer the horizon. For a moment behind the wheel Mikel was tempted too to watch the sun rise, but then, remembering his wicked headache and that he had more whiskey in his locker thought better of it. Instead he continued driving. leaving the two figures standing side by side, perhaps talking in low amicable voices as they waited to watch the sunrise.

* * *

As cold as it was, and as much as her body hurt in several places, strangely on that frigid horizon Clara felt better than she had in a long time. _Today_ she thought, _Is going to be a good day_. No matter the hangover or the bruises. 

They weren't so close as to touch, but it was close enough for each of them. Even the irritating noise of incoming traffic (unusual this time of morning) didn't dissuade either of them from returning to their routine. 

A big grey cloud had been lifted from her spirit, she sighed happily into the oncoming sunrise. Her hand in her pocket rolling almost absently around a little black button. She was even looking forward to her appointment with Jack Seward.

* * *

Inside the institute the last thing she needed in that moment lit up her phone screen and buzzed across her desk.

Lydia’s name and a text that read-

‘ _Fox - incoming_.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A sweet conclusion? I hope no one is disappointed.


	17. Check Mate

**Chapter 17**

**Check Mate**

* * *

And there was only that second of warning before a heavy knock sounded on her door. 

The unmistakable knock of a cop and from her desk she rose to greet the police Commissioner. Lydia followed with a fearfully uneasy look behind him.

 _Fox indeed_.

“Commissioner, to what do I owe this pleasure?” The commissioner entered the room with a familiarity and confidence offering a smile- or rather exposed the gleaming bone white of teeth from a contraction of flesh to Agatha who rose. To say her hackles were up would be an understatement. The commissioner had company, a small milieu of what looked like forensics were waiting outside her office. Agatha resisted using her strength as she took his hand, which was as dry as the smile he gave. There was something off about him but she felt thick and disoriented, as if she'd been napping and she struggled to pinpoint the discrepancy she felt. Too many questions crowded. Why the commissioner, why now?

She gestured for him to take a seat.

“Let's cut to the chase _Agatha_.” He did not sit. _Not a wolf but a fox I think_. Agatha surmised. Lydia looked uneasy at the use of Agatha’s real name but Agatha’s face didn’t change expression. “We're here, I'm sure you can suspect, over the recent 'happenings'.” Agatha blinked. _Happenings?_ _H_ _ow vague_. Though she felt no amusement at this, and struggled to keep a pleasant expression over narrowed sharp eyes. 

"Happenings. Of course." She repeated.

“So we have some understanding!" He said as if this was some form of confirmation, dry lips stretching further over those dry white teeth. "Happy to hear that, happy to hear that. It’ll be swept under the rug of course, but we’ve had a little pressure trickling down. Nothing but an independent _review_ to settle all those at the to-” 

It was that moment that Dracula decided to enter, his puppy, newly returned to his heels, haggard yet bright at the same time. Clara cringing in quiet apology as they cut through the swarm of forensics who milled like woodlouse and were soon shut back behind the thick office door cutting them off from the swarm of them.

“Am I interrupting?” Dracula asked, sounding for all the world chipper and _looking_ it. _My someones had a pleasant evening._ With a better look she would have seen the bruises smattering Clara, but she was a little distracted at that moment. Not that her answer would have mattered, he was already making his way into the room to take the seat offered to the commissioner as his own. Owning it with languid careless grace as he dropped into it without giving the man standing beside it even a passing look just as he hadn't bothered with any of the other little woodlouse outside the door.

Clara gave her a ‘sheepish’ apologetic look, following her master and standing at chair back with all the grace of someone with at least a little decency in manners. She graced the commissioner a gracious nod of greeting and did a slight double take on the man. Like stepping upon something sharp in a carpet, something about him pricked her senses almost immediately. She laid her hand on the chair back, as if by reflex. The one in the chair did not mistake it, but still he did not look up to show any regard even as the 'wolf' with its sharp little eyes and those bone blunt filed teeth smiled.

“This must be the infamous _asset_ , and what lunch?” He asked and thought himself quite amusing as he chuckled at himself for that little bit of humor, his dry eyes lingering on Clara and drifting over the just visible dark blush showing from her carefully buttoned collar. Clara stopped herself from looking away and instead held his gaze. The fabric of the leather chair made a quiet remark of discomfort as her hand flexed. Her shoulders squared a quiet moment of grim regard and posturing and that the humor faded like the mirage in a desert. 

"Sinclair Sir, Security." She said and once the air itself began to dry even Lydia's mouth Clara turned her gaze to Agatha who was quickly summoning a remark. 

“Count Dracula this is Commissioner Eugene Bennett, our paths cross from time to time as you may imagine. And no Eugene that's not how we run things. Sinclair is of course one of the security members assigned directly to the Count.” 

“Lucky girl,” His eyes lingered too long, Clara was unsettled by that look and did not greet it thought she felt it brush over her like sandpaper making her skin crawl and itch like it was covered with tiny sand fleas. _'Its his_ eyes' she thought. They were _bright butcher blue_. She felt a little nauseous, and a queer feeling like a tide rising up her ankles came over her. Her instincts were clawing her hair stood and she realized why and resisted to look. _I know those eyes_. Her heart jammed into her throat, she might have done something dumb then, her hand sweated on the back of the chair and she felt acutely the weight of her holstered weapon at her hip. 

Then Dracula shifted, perhaps it was an imperceptible motion to some, 'just a shifting' of weight, that many humans made naturally when sitting. But Dracula wasn't human and he could at times be absolutely unnaturally still. Instead at that moment while her hairs rose and her heart increased its pitch and her hand growing a bit wet on the palm and starting to stick to the leather backing of the chair was about to peel away to absently, -thoughtfully- thumb the weapon at her holster he shifted.

His head tipped back, winking just the barest hint of his cheek bone.

Clara stilled. He'd already noticed what Agatha had missed.

“Incredible work you’ve done here Dr. Helsing, you’ve already found a cure? I would have thought I might have heard that down the grapevine. I’m sure that will move along this ‘friendly inquiry.” _Cure?_ Agatha resisted looking at Lydia, a dull throb at the back of her throat like a knocking upon a door. Or rather a beast rattling in a cage. She was surprised the the strength of the flash of anger that swelled, like a flash fire, quickly snuffed by the lack of oxygen she offered it, but exposed for a moment in her eyes. _Who told him Clara had been infected?_

“No cure _yet_. Only a means of defending against infection.” She said, clipped and cold, feeling ever more on edge. Her mind was churning. This was no coincidence. Not at all. On the eve they were to move forward with experimenting on Amanda? 

“Speaking of lunch, perhaps commissioner Bennett would like a drink?” Dracula hummed, finally regarding the commissioner, an expression too docile and complimentary to believe, not unlike the commissioners, just better warn, shark eyes dark and gleaming from ocean depths. The two masks shared a queer mannequin smile as they faced each other.

“No, I don’t _drink_ , on the job you see.” Bennett drawled his words hovering with veiled meaning, by something obvious then to almost everyone other than Agatha. 

"A creature of higher ethics than myself I'm afraid- I treat drinking like a job you see." Then he made a little movement with his free hand catching Agatha's eye, but without meeting hers obviously, crossing his legs instead to vaguely distract from the motion he made of tapping two fingers in the center of his chest.

_Tap._

_Tap tap._

_Tap._

An unmistakable gesture of a... heartbeat but why-

It was almost like realizing that long ago the record had reached the end of the song and was merely skipping, when you were certain it had been playing all along- so lost one became in their own world. Of course someone entering the room, it would be obvious instantly.

Just as Dracula had- before even entering the room heard only one heartbeat- Lydia's, and was surprised to see a new face with bright blue eyes rising to greet him. The same sense told Clara's military instincts, honed to reflex what Agatha, groggy and under the weather had missed.

The commissioner was quite dead. Or really- undead.

“So, including the evidence of the club incident we’d like to have access to everything. You understand of course that with so many dead bodies we need to at least be certain you’ve acted with ethical soundness. And while we appreciate of course the Institutes containment protocol but we’ll be stepping in now for _our_ investigations.”

At this Lydia interjected in alarm, oddly a ghost and yet ironically one of the only living creatures present.

“You are dealing with a highly volatile contagion! There is no way that the council has approved-” But the commissioner with twinkling eyes was already withdrawing something from his breast pocket. He dropped it upon Agatha’s desk forcing Lydia to come and take it. Unfolding it to look at the paper with a grim set to her mouth. Agatha could see from her face that it was legitimate. But all of that was nothing nothing compared to what hand had already been shown.

“Rest assured I have my best forensics team ready to handle it. Any evidence, even your _treatment_ protocols and reports will be appreciated.” 

Agatha kept her expression cool. It was easy since she felt as if she'd been dropped into a frozen lake.

“Miss. Bluxhom, please escort his forensics unit to the lab and assist them anyway you can.” Agatha took a moment to regard the man standing before her: his too white teeth- far more politics than police- yet there was a bluntness. The undisguised look of a man who wasn't just familiar with brutality but who enjoyed being given the reason to exercise the authority. Was that his newfound vampirism or a natural blood lust? Agatha pondered distantly, her mouth continuing to move with lip service which was adding only a frigid air to the room already free of moisture.“It was quite the mess in the club, I certainly hope that there will be no more such incidents?” Agatha stated carefully, laying the Councils order onto her desk without opening it.

“One can hope it was only a _single_ incident of course." answered and with only a small beat between, "-Actually, since I’m here, were there any other leads you were pursuing?” She watched him very carefully as she answered.

“Yes, in fact there seems to be a young man linked. He was caught on film within Amanda Williams' apartment. We’ve been unable to find him as of yet.” There was an unmistakable tightening of his mouth, and around his eyes.

“We’ll be needing those tapes as well.” He said, and then, “Who knows, perhaps we can assist in some way. No hard feelings I hope Dr. Helsing?”

“Oh no of course not- I have no doubt your arrival will prove to be quite _beneficial_ in discovering the origins of this thing.” she said and met his smile with her own, showing her own teeth this time with earnest. Her human smile at least. Though the other was not far behind.

“I’m very glad to pass that along, it's been a pleasure… Agatha.” He said and leveled one last look to Dracula and Clara. “Count, and - Clara Sinclair was it?” He winked and Clara repressed something she was surprised to feel, revulsion and the sudden urge to _lunge-._

Lydia followed him out, leading him and the forensics team away leaving Clara with the last heart beat in the room, an uncomfortable thudding. 

The Counts hand on hers- he'd reached up and around and laid it there just as that dark urge rose and like throwing a bucket of water over embers ready to take fire he'd smote them cold and returned her to herself though she spun unpleasantly and felt strangely conflicted, her skin prickling and her guts uneasy again- though perhaps they'd simply not yet recovered from the hangover.

“I presume that wasn’t quite what you expected?” Dracula demurred from the armchair. His hand left Clara's as if it had never graced her flesh and her palm returned by habit to her hip and the 'pommel' of her weapon so to speak.

“He was one of them. Shouldn't we- Do something?" Clara asked, not forcefully, but rather more at a loss. Agatha laughed at that.

"Do something to an undead commissioner?” _And one with the Councils approval?_ This was far deeper than she expected, she’d been vaguely aware of a similar possibility, a rogue government body perhaps, or their _own_ military, but had held out hope that this could have been a science experiment taken to the black market prematurely. "No I am afraid Clara our hands are tied there."

“Was that a checkmate Agatha?” Dracula asked, watching, listening. He was getting a little hungry, and thinking now of the meal he had waiting for him, though this was slightly more sumptuous, more curious.

“I’ll will certainly let them think so.-" She said and suddenly reached down to open a drawer, retrieving apparently something from within, though Clara could only see a closed fist which she suddenly rose to extend to Dracula. “Dracula, why don’t you help the boys about and make sure that Amanda is wrapped properly.” She’d withdrawn something onto her desk and now handed it to him in her enclosed hand. He took it and when he opened his palm he smiled.

“My pleasure.”

* * *

Agatha stood in the stripped down lab where Amanda had been moved from.

Only just after they’d confidently built the damn thing to hold Dracula to boot, now it was just a desolate lab. Empty desks and vials behind secure glass, and the best locking system and technology money could by- military tested. A dead end behind an isolated wall of glass which is where Agatha decided to sit, bitter and moored. Still collecting herself in the hours after. Her only satisfaction was the passing confirmation by Dracula that he'd pulled it off and done what she'd requested. But now there was waiting,

She took a stool and found herself pulling out paper from a drawer. That at least had been left.

The pen lacked something a quill and ink had but she’d not yet adapted to the computers of the time and preferred still to write to clear her mind as she did now. She took some pride in her old world script as it sprawled out giving a grace to the dead white paper. 

It wasn’t anything specifically elegant. More a series of comments and questions under several headings.

> _Patented vampirism-_
> 
>   * _No reflection in mirror_
>   * _Extended canines (She’d reviewed enough slow motion footage of the Club firefight to see that)_
> 

>   * Linked through some ‘weak’ yet persistent mental presence which extends through the viral connection (psychic link?)
> 

>   * Sensitivity to fire/ immolation
>   * Sensitivity to silver
> 


She sat back and could not help but think that it was all rather _corney_? But oh she had forgotten one. _Blue eyes_. She wrote it down.

It was like someone was playing a joke based on all those vampire myths that Agatha hadn’t had squashed. The more she was looking at the vampire virus the more she was growing certain that these traits, at least _some_ of them had been designed. No reflection in mirror? That couldn't be a coincidence. Not in a designer virus, the silver and fire she could potentially believe, but that... Looking over the notes reminded her of something, or someone rather. Bram, Poor Bram. She winced remembering, but of course that brought all sort of unpleasant reminisces back. All sorts of shames and regrets. 

She struggled out of her thoughts and continued down the page.

  * _Commissioner,_
  * _Unknown male suspect_
  * _Club_
  * _Facilities able to design and patent virus who would have links to the commissioner???_



There couldn’t be many of those. Her lab was one of them. Stein of course but there were others, foreign entities working on British soil, _military_. She might have Lydia look into the commissioners links, to see if he had any military experience.

* * *

Lost in her thoughts there she drifted, until something that she hadn't felt in a very long time occurred- she felt the faintest, almost fond flutter upon her cheek. Like the passing of a hand that doesn't quite touch. 

She started up, almost certain she’d caught a blink of blonde eyes and pale hair for the briefest moment.

But it was Lydia. No ghost of her past. Or angel... Just living and breathing Lydia to her relief.

“They were quite thorough, I’m sorry.” Lydia said having finally seen the last of the little lice away some time ago and had been since cleaning up the mess by the time she found her way back to see Agatha sitting in her remote little island. Her sensible sneakers whisper across the sterile linoleum floor and she brought her hand to Agatha’s shoulder to give it a squeeze and Agatha sighed into the gesture, bringing her hand to rest a top Lydia’s.

She was warm, Agatha could hear her heartbeat, and despite how she cleaned beneath her nails they would always evoke that warm earthen smell of garden dirt. Agatha was feeling nostalgic again in a way that was becoming a habit, perhaps because she couldn’t get a grip on what was currently happening it was somehow easier to reflect on the past.

“It can’t all be for nothing though can it?” She asked, trying to be an optimist. Of course it wasn’t. Agatha’s cool smile wasn’t completely dishonest. Dracula had planted what she’d requested. In a few hours she could go to her office and find out exactly where the commissioner was taking Amanda and her samples.

“No, we know more than we ever did.” She agreed.

“The commissioner he’s...” Lydia wasn’t slow by any means.

“Yes, but no doubt a puppet himself, though I suspect a well connected one. If I remember correctly the commissioner has a son doesn’t he? I think we should look into that.” It was a hunch, but Agatha’s hunches were rarely poor. Lydia nodded.

“I can get on that right away, is there anything else Agatha?”

“Yes” she sighed, softened by Lydia’s murmur of her name. “There is another matter I’d like you to orchestrate. New protocols for employees, I’d like everyone on a regime of colloidal silver, as well as samples collected from every employee who had either security clearance or direct access to Amanda.”

“Samples?”

“Blood samples. I’m going to have Dracula try and uproot our little rat.” _Rat_ her mouth curled around the word in disdain almost vulgar on the sterile air.

“Rat ma’am?” Lydia repeated, uneasy pitch to her voice her heartbeat jumping and her hand withdrawing.

“Don’t worry Lydia, we’ll get to the bottom of this.” Agatha turned, and captured the hand that left her shoulder without thinking. “You know I couldn’t do all this without you. It would be like missing my left arm.” Lydia's expression became withdrawn, her hand tensed for a moment on Agatha’s shoulder before she slipped it away. She’d said something wrong, of course she had. What right did she have to speak of sentimentality when she’d been the end of their intimacy so long ago. “I’m sorry.” she sighed, sorry for the past and the future.

“Don’t be, there's nowhere else I’d rather be.” Her brown doe eyes spoke of sincerity but also of loss. Agatha found it difficult to look too long. Lydia cleared her throat and continued. “You don't seem as concerned as I thought that the Commissioner took everything.” She pressed and Agatha shared her self satisfied smile.

“I had Dracula plant a bug inside Amanda’s head. Wherever she ends up, we’ll find out.” 

“I see.” She was expecting something more than that dry 'I see' and the faint darting of Lydia's eyes as if she suddenly needed to leave the room.

“Are you alright Lydia? You seem quite… off.” Lydia however was making it towards the door, Agatha rose, considering stopping her but not quite possessed to do so yet.

“It’s just moving a bit faster than I’d hoped.” She said terse at the frame of the door between the lock out room and the observatory. Agatha didn't yet understand. Lydia however moved outside the glass doors and before Agatha could rise to stop her she swiped the card in the doors access panel and the doors swooshed shut.

Locked.

“Lydia whats the meaning of this!?” Lydia stared through the glass with wide hazel eyes.

“I’m sorry Agatha. But you’ll see it’s… It’s for the best.” Agatha, slammed her hand against the glass, and Lydia smiled a queer uneasy smile. “It’s vampire proof, as I promised it would be.”

“Lydia, where are you going- Lydia!” Lydia had turned away; she was walking out the doors and closing the light behind her.

Agatha was trapped.

* * *

Lydia moved with that swift efficiency that she’d honed over the years to be almost surgical. 

She checked her smart watch which it gleaned was 3 pm. Sinclair was within an appointment with Dr. Seward. There were many pieces moving in her head and she was one such piece. One of the many many pawns in play. That was important because that meant that Dracula was otherwise occupied, she need to keep him that way.

More importantly she had a call to make. She did that then, without breaking stride. It rang twice.

“What is it- I’m in the middle-”

“Vic, it’s Lydia.”

“Lydia…” The voice trailed as if he struggled to remember her then, lifted from the fog of thought. “Lydia, these samples… I need more of them!”

“There are more pressing concerns Victor, are you listening?” She hissed into the receiver.

“Am I- were talking about immortality here Lydia. Now these samples they are marked from a _Sinclair C_. Do you have access to the patient?” It was difficult to get Victor off a roll, so it was best to get beyond it and quickly.

“Yes, you could say that-”

“I need it, dead or alive. Can you get it? Use my boys if you have to.” _It_. He said. Lydia rubbed her furrowed brow with enough fervor to peel the skin.

“Victor-” She was growing frustrated. Aware of the sea of face passing her, a familiar look from one or two of Steins men as she stopped in the hall.

“Why are you calling Lydia, you never call this time?” Suddenly he was sounding just as he had when he was nineteen, and disturbed by her arriving at five am to find him still bent over his papers having been there all night.

“That's what I’ve been getting at… She knows Victor. Or she’s on her way to knowing.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She’s had the head tracked. It would have led back to you so I … I locked her into one of the chambers.”

There was a thoughtful silence.

“Can you get me the origin of the sample Lydia?”

“Bloody hell victor, are you listening to me?! Its over, or soon to be-”

“Get me that sample and nothing ever need to be over again Lydia. Do you understand me? This is what we’ve been waiting for! Do whatever you must to keep them busy. But get me that _body_ .” Very suddenly Lydia felt one sidling up behind her, a shadow skirting hers and moving just out of sight from the corner of her eye. She flinched and let out a bit of a cry to see _him_ standing behind her. Just her bloody luck. 

Lydia let out a sharp cry. Gripping the phone and fumbling to hang up. Dracula observed her under dark eyes and with a serene expression.

“Lydia-” the voice crackled abrasively over the phone before cutting out with a slap dash of her thumb. _Had he heard?_ _Had he?_ Her narrowed eyes observed the blank expression of his shadow, the Norwegian merc Mikel and the sharp look of the other Dane who seemed to be more acutely observant. 

“Sounded like a personal call. Victor was it?” He drawled, "Was that bout those bodies I requested?" He added raising thick dark brows hopefully, yet his eyes remained like dark glass- unreadable to Lydia- Untrustworthy.

“No-" She blurted then, stupidly. "Yes actually- sorry you just caught me off guard is there something else I can help you with?” She asked, voice tight, her heart slamming against her ribs.

“Yes, I was hoping to have a word with Agatha actually. Perhaps you could let me know where she is?”

He knew, but he wasn’t saying anything. Lydia’s mind worked.

“Actually I was just on my way to get Sinclair,” She managed, thinking on her feet.

“Why don’t we all go together?”

* * *

Their laughter was cut off by the sharp knock. Clara rubbed the tears of humor from her eyes and caught her breath. As Jack coughed to clear his throat and stood up to answer the door.

“Sorry I’m in a session-”

“Jack, apologies.” Lydia who looked at times frazzled looked positively **grim** and Jack forgot about the laughter as he looked out to see Dracula hovering near with a plastic grim look and the two mercenaries. “I’ll need to be relieving Clara early from her session.”

“Agatha wants to see her apparently. Actually Jack, why don’t you come, it seems like it will be a proper picnic.”

“Sir?” Clara rose and when she caught sight of Dracula’s face she too became more hesitant and serious. 

“Why not?” Lydia confirmed, a borderline hysterical laugh. 

“Is something the matter Miss Bluxom? Jack questioned eyeing Dracula with unease.

“Perfect. Just perfect Dr. Seward, but if you don’t mind we are on something of a time limit.” Clara stood and re-slung her weapons belt. A Beretta with silver bullets, and gloves with silver studded plates within the knuckles which she pulled back over her hands by habit as she re-buckled deftly. 

* * *

Clara wanted to ask Dracula what was a matter. She could feel his tension humming like the agitation of a cat ready to pounce. Wilson was on his break- likely something extended in the washroom. He was worst beat of them all from their long night, she was wondering if she could somehow get a hold of him as they traveled down the long cool halls, the florescent lights seemingly louder, electric flies buzzing. 

Something was off and she didn’t like it, not one bit. Jack too was picking up on these signals but was more uneasy of Dracula than anything else. He edged near Lydia, as if for some protection or perhaps some reassurance but she was positively icy, her gaze straight ahead, without offering the slightest consolation. 

They reached 'room'. Lydia moved to the door and entered the code. As the door slid open there was a faint din of slamming. like a very loud moth beating against glass with futile wings. But the room was dark. She stepped aside. Dane and Mikel entered, ambled really, though Dane scowled into the dark waiting for the lights to come on. There was a faint cry and Dracula swept into the room, drawn to it, his head angling in the dark and Clara stepped to Lydia's side eager- if not ready to follow. Which is when she struck-. 

“What the-” Dane muttered, Agatha hesitated on her next blow to the unmarked glass as the lights humming and flickered on to reveal her trapped like a zoo animal with bloodied knuckles looking like a winded wild beast. She met Only Dracula's gaze through the glass eyes wide, unlike he'd ever seen them before they moved somewhere beyond him and she screamed, likely at the top of her lungs for her words to escape the nearly sound proofed room.

"LYDIA!" 

Then things happened very quickly. Lydia unholstered Clara's weapon which was beside her, and withdrawing it she immediately removed safety and with surprising skill and ease she unloaded four shots into the room. 

One two- Danes back, three- Mikel, Four- Clara's leg.

It felt like a tug on her pant leg, like a strange wave of numb shock and like she was standing on a leg which had fallen asleep, her knee giving way.

In the next motion she'd taken a bewildered Jack by the scruff like and held the gun to his rib cage, aimed to the heart and lungs her eyes flashing in warning as Dracula spun, his nose filled with the scent of freshly spilled blood.

He was going to lunge but he stopped as Clara hit the floor between them. Her blood spilling and the beast for a moment hesitated giving Lydia a moment to speak in a rush.

“You might be able to tackle both Jack and I but with Jack in the way can you get to me before I take aim at Clara there and pull the trigger- before the device holds you back? or takes you out permanently?"

“What are you doing?!” Jack gaped. Down the halls the security of Stein was stirring like antibodies rushing to the wound. Or perhaps a virus marauder finally showing itself, she never moved her eyes from Dracula’s.

“Be a good dog and **stay**.” It was all Dracula could do, his nose was filled with the scent of blood Clara held her hand over the wounds tight not daring to look up at him. Instead feeling the weight of his predatory gaze, thicker than air filling up the room as water might rush into a sealed container threatening to drown- to overwhelm. A grimace bite into her cheeks leaving a quiet dimple in her cheek and she stared up at Lydia with eyes almost black by the cast of the light which Lydia stared at with unblinking blank mania. Looking but not seeing as she spoke. “Security, we have a code red breach here!” She said, loud and clear and Clara shuddered, beginning to kick herself back from the door in understanding. Except Lydia jerked towards her. “Not you Sinclair, Your needed elsewhere." 

"No." 'He' said simply, was the thickness from the saliva or the monstrous teeth crowding for space in his mouth, stirred to devour? Clara would take her chances and she tipped the point of her chin at Lydia defiantly.

“You heard him. Just shoot me because I’m not going anywhere with you.” Rage passed briefly over the woman's face like a shadow, then an even more unnerving amusement- gleaming too bright in her eyes on her suddenly palled face.

“You’d take your chances bleeding with a vampire? Fine. Dead or alive doesn’t seem to matter.” The gun went of.

Jack stumbled- pushed by Lydia's heavy weight. As he stumbled in his arms wheeling up with nothing to catch he caught the briefest glimpse of Clara's expression was fixed holding still that stubborn look her chin still raised, but her face paling and a shadow of expression settling there like- acceptance- and below her face the spread of red cutting through the crisp white. Then he saw only the linoleum rising to meet his face and the flinch of waiting impact, feeling Clara's body tangled in his legs.

An alarm was blaring and lights flashed. 

“Lydia!” Agatha cried, faintly from behind the glass like a distant echo like the distant sound of despair swallowed by the howl of an ambulance. 

The last sight of Lydia was the brief expression of satisfied jubilation before the doors closed. 

The Stein mercenaries had done as they had been bid and entered the pathogen outbreak protocol.

It would lock down the entire facility.

They were locked in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moving quite quickly now I know.


	18. Junior Partner

Jack didn’t hit the floor. To his astonishment he found himself suspended and blinked several times, his mind struggling to understand as he absorbed that some kind of strength was at his back keeping him from the floor pulling his jacket tight like straps on his shoulders. He caught sight of well shined shoes and his relief cut with ‘ _oh_ ’ . At that his trajectory- which had been at once properly arrested was then promptly _diverted_ \- as 'his savior' sent him flying like a discarded slipper into the wall. His feet catching on Clara’s body sending him tripping and reeling to the glass where the impact shot up his body and pain lanced his cheek which struck but made nothing but a dull ‘thwack’ 

Agatha looked down at him, and he was struck not only by the glass but the awful age in her face- her complexion waxen and eyes set back in stark hollows. Her lips moved and her eyes darted in animation as if trying to communicate something but Jack, his cheek smarting was still caught by shock. 

She smacked the glass and her mouth moving in exaggeration he managed to hear:

“-T.HE C.O.DE-” But this faint cry was swallowed by a gurgle behind him. Behind him Dane, struggled for breath, thick pools of blood spreading from his body. Though panic clawed him his eyes suddenly narrowed, his vision tunneled with purpose as he dropped quickly to the mans side his only thought to try and help in some way. In any way! His mind was like a slide show of obvious points which yet remained incoherent. _Dracula. Blood. Dying._ He didn’t know what he could do, so he did what he could. His heart swollen in his throat, his cheek throbbing a distant buzzing pain as he settled by the man.

“Stay still-” He ordered the man who blinked up at him, suddenly baring red bloody teeth like a kind of savage grin.

“Killed by a bloody manager.” Dane said. The blood was coming out quicker now, hot and gushing despite the hands Jack laid upon him. He felt the heart pushing, expelling and evacuating life from the mercenary.

“Your not-” 

“It struck his artery. He doesn’t have long.” Dracula said voice shockingly clinical and bearing on mocking disdain. His figure blocked Clara’s from view. _Is he?_ Jack wondered- but He couldn’t could he-? not if the deterrent was functioning.

Why that wasn’t any consolation..?

“Right -Quick.” Dane blurted, his face becoming a deathly pale a grimace half wizened laugh frozen on his face before he exsanguinated with a seizing gurgle. Jack made a terrible noise- half wheeze half cry- as he felt the man die. 

“S’allright, we know the business.” Mikel murmured, clutching his shoulder a forgotten wounded soldier. He’d dragged himself without fuss to rest upon the wall, watching with his quiet reserve. Jack withdrew his blood soaked hands from the man who with absent eyes rattled his last breaths. Death rattles they called them, Jacks own body and bones rattling along with the man. It had felt like this too when Lucy died after when he-. 

Agatha’s beating upon the glass was like distant moth beats growing more persistent, more determined, thick and fast as the beating heart that had just ceased.

“ **Jack, the code! Enter the code- 5241**.” Something to do. Something other than sitting and shaking and sick his nose filled with the smell. That sickening metallic smell that filled up the tiny room like sticky tropic humidity clinging to his flesh and lingering in his throat. 

Jack forced himself up and made his way to the keypad, shakily pressing the keys. Smearing the blood and forced to have to restart trembling as the keys were left tacky blurring the numbers.

Finally it opened. 

Agatha stumbled out, her nostrils flaring and teeth engorging at the scent of blood she gripped the wall with shaking hands. 

“Good Jack, now take our wounded friend inside with you. It will be safest for you within those walls- and Sinclair-”

“There is no need for that.” 'He' said.

Agatha understood as she came to see with her grim grey eyes, gleaming bright then with her own predatory hunger and struggle to resist it. She dared not help Jack and Mikel into the room. Jack who was struggling to bring the man from the wall, no longer daring to look while Mikel stared blatantly, his eyes passing like a sheet over his fallen comrade, and lingering on the dark space cut by Dracula on the floor, Clara somewhere there, he’d only seen the crown of her pale head before he was ushered with help of Jack into the room. 

“When it is over we will return for you. “ She told them a she moved to close the door, holding her hand over her mouth, fingers trembling over the sticky keypad. Resisting the urge to lick her fingers, lick the keys and reading the brail with her tongue- that sweet thick blood… Danes blood, so familiar, tinny making her almost sleepy with desire.

“What are you going to do?” Jack asked, and her mind came back, fingers hovering over the pad and she swallowed, feeling her teeth cut her lips and did not look at him.

“Get to our rat, and follow the fox back to its burrow.” The hiss of the closing doors masked her own hiss of relief that they were barred from her grasp

The speakers sounded suddenly, a crackle through the air already thick.

_‘I suppose I shouldn’t have expected that to hold you long Agatha. Be warned that once you leave the room the Stein guards have an order to restrain you. Are you willing to spill their blood to get to me? As for you Dracula, I have control of your little Deterrent now so I expect you to be a good dog on a leash unless you want to join your puppy.’_

“Stay here while I finish this.” Agatha said to Dracula, already at the door, ready to override the lock with her code. She could hear Clara’s faint wheezing breaths, her blood in the air a maddening scent. Yes, she was ready to spill blood, more than ready... Her hands shook, like the hands of an addict shake long overdue for their needle.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” 

He was remarkably collected. She noted, almost envious as she turned to look at him. She didn’t quite understand what she saw, only noted the intimacy of it. Clara’s pocket was strangely turned out as if she’d dug something out and bloodied fingers were locked over his which he had squeezed into a fist as if holding something there. Clara did not even look at Agatha, she looked only at him as pain played across her face, raking through her breaths. But her hand never hesitated from that touch, her eyes never wavered, as if she was some snake charmer who dared not break a spell. It was a magic Agatha would have been fascinated to study, but her head was clouded so stuffy… How long had it been like that? The smell of her was maddening cloying sweet. And in that moment she saw it, or felt it rather- what was in his palm.

A little black button which she’d scrambled out of her pocket.

_The flash of his face seen by Clara, vivid and horrifying cut like a knife as he lunged only to be stopped._

Stopped by a little _button_?

She could taste the words. Taste the words she spoke in a half choke in the air. carried in memory by the blood like sweet mist in the air, almost tender.

“ _I trust you.”_

The doors opened and Agatha left them. Before she herself became the enemy. The memory lingered on her tongue becoming bitter with despair.

* * *

Beyond the doors a human a human cry of alarm went up, radio’s crackling. 

Dracula any other day he would have given anything too see Agatha in her glory, the kind that could cause grown mercenaries to scream as he heard them now. But that would have to wait. He had an eternity to see that first hand. But what was happening now would happen only once.

They were alone now but for the screams. Clara blinked her blue eyes up at him, serene and clear. Conscious, but seemingly waiting for something. Her fingers were cold over his, sticky with her own blood which wept from the wound in her chest. She'd clutched the wound perplexed as it uncertain of its reality until her hand came away with the blood, spreading out now freely. She’d chosen not to hold it, in place of keeping her hand on his her eyes fixed like she was undertaking some strange sorcery. Perhaps she was. 

He’d been ready to kill her. He still wanted to devour her. He’d torn Jack off before he could even hit the ground and tangle their bodies. He’d descended with intent to lower his mouth to the sweet spring. She’d tipped her head up, but instead of raising her arms to block him as he took her like a doll to cradle on his lap. Instead her hand had emerged from her pocket and she’d said.

“Here.” _Here_. It had arrested him, the bluntness of it. The strange offering stuck between sticky fingers and the feeling of them fresh with blood quickly going sticky blood suddenly plodding blindly trying to seek his hand. He’d looked down to see it there without understanding at first, and then- 

His button.

It was nothing. A bit of plastic with a tickle of sewing thread still knotted around it. 

But she held it like a talisman and he found himself by some strange way fascinated by that. Watching as she very delicately- as if she held gold- placed it in his hand and closed his fingers over it.

It was like a small pebble. Her blue eyes searched his face unabashedly and very quietly she announced something even more peculiar.

“I trust you.” 

Wasn’t it **his** eyes that were meant to be magnetic? Why then was he suddenly swimming in blue, anchored by that little stone in his palm- the beastly urges suddenly - impossibly _leashed_ by the barest fishing line thread? By a bloody _button?_

She filled his nose, but the whispers too were strangely soothing- _Body pulled off hers, crash of relief._

_Dracula!-_

“Dracula.” She said quietly. She wasn’t afraid, he didn’t know what she was. He couldn’t quite fathom it. Those moment were gone now. Agatha was gone. Jack and Mikel distant observers. Three bodies in a room, only one heart beat which struggled to continue.

The button pinched safely between his fingers he moved their hands to press over the weeping wound.

“Your dying.” He said, his words swallowed by the hollow walls. This pronouncement did not surprise her.

“Yeah.” she wheezed struggling for breath a little now. She was going to drown in her own blood. That sweet maddening blood which raked his senses like fingers grasping- yet by that same raking soothed, flooding him with her surface thoughts her feelings her… trust. Why did she feel that? Didn’t she know how much he wanted to destroy her… Even if that meant destroying himself? He was overwhelmed suddenly by that. She was going to die. And if he didn’t- well- if he didn’t taste her she’d be gone. _Gone,_ gone. That thought was impossibly maddening, enraging almost.

“Let me taste you Clara. Let me keep you.” He looked into her blue eyes, attempting to sway her, to move her the way some humans can be moved, _seduced_. But her blue eyes remained only a cool reflection, indifferent and serene staring up into his own blood mad eyes. Black and red with hunger, with agitation and heat.

“No.” She said, voice thickening with the blood that was filling her lungs making it harder to take breath. The blood was spreading beneath his hand which held it, and into the cavity below her breast. 

“Why?” He demanded, an edge of fury to his voice, barely restrained. The button biting into his flesh for the grip he had on it.

“-cause I’m your junior partner.” She answered, a terrible creeping tickle up the back of her throat making her seize with a racking cough. Blood spatted his face, her lips taking a bluish hue. Her eyes watered as she struggled to take another breath. Her hand scrambled suddenly as panic of the body stirred her, and she clutched at his wrist. “And I’m asking you not to.” she managed and smiled weakly up at him, a gleam to those watering eyes that over spilled leaking her tears down her cheeks and into the hair.

He could have drowned in that look, was afraid he was, was afraid somewhere Lydia was pressing a button and his deterrent was activating because nothing else could cause the intense burning… That in another moment it would be _‘poof_ ’ and they’d both be dying alone.

“A kiss-” he murmured, trying to grasp anything he might. “To say goodbye.” _I’m not ready yet_. He was expecting stubborn refusal, expecting with body coiled and ready to overpower her if he must. He would do that- the bastard he was, if she denied him.

Only she didn’t.

“Withou’ tha teeth.” She said managing somehow to look sheepish and something about that even then was funny. Her blushing like a school girl while she bled out. But she was young wasn't she? what was she twenty five? no more than twenty eight. That was nothing. He'd slept through four or five of those lives. Four or five Clara's- gone in a blink.

“They’ll say we were lovers Clara-” He said struggling to keep the facade of causality as he brushed her hair from her forehead and she smiled like you smile at someone you share a secret with and he supposed in a way they did have one. 

“We know better.” She said, her breath cloying with that ambrosial scent between their lips as his face drew down.

“Yes we do.” He admitted before his mouth pressed to hers- the pink of them fading to blue as the pink dawn fades eventually to twilight.

She parted for him without passion and instead sweet with tenderness like arms opening to welcome a familiar tender friend. Her mind was reaching for him… Waiting for him. If Lydia was pushing that button, he thought. At least he wasn’t going alone.

Unlike before there was no great wall, instead it was like wading against a river's current, rushing about his thighs pushing him back but easy with effort to break through. 

Through to the other side.

* * *

He stepped from the river to see a familiar horizon. The one from Carfax fields: the Whitby cliffs overlooking the sea. The same horizon she’d joined him for their first sunrise and the many after. 

Except there was something different about it.

“I don’t remember there being a bench here.” He remarked wryly as he approached.

Clara turned to look back at him and smiling over her shoulder she made an impatient gesture for him to join her announcing as she did:

“Every good lookout needs a bench.” She said. “Come on.” She scooted invitingly as if to make room for him. 

He settled there, his arm extending over the back of the bench and to his surprise instead of maintaining their distance Clara closed the space between them. Tucking herself there so he might wrap his arm around her and resting herself into the crook of his side. There he felt her body sigh into his. An echo of the sigh she gave in his arms above that brought the taste of her blood into his mouth, blood that made his connection suddenly sharper so that the fantasy became painfully vivid. 

He felt the weight of her hand spread over his chest, despite its smallness and softness she placed it exactly where a human heart might have been. Strangely, and with surprise he felt a flutter there, was that Clara’s desire? The vividness of that flutter shocked him, but he did not withdraw. It was just Clara’s own heart, echoing through her connection into him he realized. Tasting it on her tongue, on his tongue.

But he didn’t want to be apart of that world, this world for now was richer, and more vibrant. More interesting and so temporary… Like chalk on a sidewalk, the weather forecast reading rain. Soon all the colors would bleed together, the image lost until there was nothing left. As if there never had been anything at all.

Experimenting with the limits of Clara’s acceptance he put his hand on her fluffy hair and dipped his nose to take in the scent. The warmth of the sun was there, as if it had collected and saturated her with that unique heat and scent of her oils. Clara always captured the scent of wind or sun or rain on her flesh. Too long in the hospital she’d collect the scent of damp earth despite the sterility. 

He’d never really cared before and he realized then he’d taken a lot for granted, he was used to having as much time as he wanted and knowing he could take whatever he wanted. He brought a cool wind by then and she sighed feeling it tickle and whip by them, resting ever more in his grip. But it wasn’t enough… because no matter how tightly he held- he already felt her slipping.

“Why do you work with-” He hesitated at the last, suddenly regretting speaking, and breaking their serenity. He’d made himself uncomfortable suddenly, but Clara stirred, gently finished for him.

“With bad dogs?” As she tipped back her face to look at him he saw In her eyes was the sweetest clear blue of sky. Zoe had been the sunrise… but Clara. Clara was the day.

“Yes,” He lied, but it didn’t matter, her eyes held their secret. They saw right through him. They always had and that's why he always wanted her around because she’d been one of the only ones that could look at him in such a way. 

To Agatha he’d been a puzzle to dissect, Lucy a means to an end, Zoe, a responsibility to keep before eternal respite. Clara just **looked** at him, she gauged him from moment to moment with those sharp little watchful eyes. When he was easy and she laughed with him as easy as she might with any other, even when she shouldn’t have. When he was a monster… and only then it was not with abhorrence only a wary respect. She had never faced him as prey might face a wolf, but instead as something else. Something he hadn’t realized could exist for something like him. Something that he might never had discovered was possible without the very thing that now threatened to extinguish is supernaturally long life at any moment.

“Well, It means more.” She said, drawing him back. Talking as if this explained everything.

“How?” Why hadn’t they had more conversations like this? Had they had any at all? He’d been so busy provoking her or teasing that, bitterly he’d never once actually talked to her. Not really. Dracula didn’t _talk_ to people. How mundane he’d considered it! Why bother when you knew everything, when everything ended the same? But that was the problem with that way of thinking… So focused on the end. You miss everything worthwhile in between. Only now about to lose it all did he realize how much he’d missed, and the potential of what might have been.

“Taking something that has every reason to be vicious, of showing it there's something better, that means more, it makes it special.” She continued explaining with that same ever steady confidence.

“How do you know… Which ones are capable, which ones are worthwhile to - ?” He despised the word 'saved' so it lingered for a malignant moment without replacement. Clara didn't need it, empty spaces sometimes said more than words ever could.

“You just hope they are. You let them show you, just like you showed-” 

‘ _me.’_

She would have said but she never made it to that. In their shared dream, blood dripped from her mouth, a garish sight and her innocent blue eyes blinked in pained bewilderment and this as if she’d forgotten where she was and her hand raised to touch where she felt it trickle. 

In the surface, where their bodies met their flesh her hand met his cheek, not unlike she had done as a child in a dream, only with nail beds turning blue. Blue like the lips, blue like the sky in her eyes, blue like the blood racing desperately in her veins desperate and gasping for oxygen her lungs would not carry. Submerged in blood. His little bloody Mary drowning. 

“Dracula-” She said in the dream, the first hint of fear, of confusion. She touched his face there too, like a dark disjointed mirror from the above world to below. Her body was losing oxygen, and her mind was growing softer about the edges as confusion set in. 

Her mind sensing the urgency and coming of death, the echo of dread reaching her even here. She looked at him and in her gaze was all the things she had no more time to say.

Affection, devotion, even a little pride. He tasted it in the blood on her tongue like strange swell of _I knew it_! It made him smile despite himself, and it felt like something was torn by it. 

But in her mind the blood trickled from her lips and he felt her distress coming stronger. She brought her other hand to her lips again, trying to catch it or stop it but it kept on coming, a reflection of her fear.

He took a hold of the fantasy and her hand before it could meet the lips and when Clara blinked the blood was gone and the feeling of her own body dying was nothing but a distant gull cry on the wind and the darkening of the distant horizon promising a storm.

“Look at me Clara.” _and forget_ he commanded. Strong now finally. _Finally_ he thought bitterly. When she did, when she raised her eyes to his, the taste of her bloomed on his tongue, it surged through their connection as she smiled, that perfect look, that moment when someone is just happy to see you and their eyes light up a little. 

His hand was so much bigger than hers and in this place hers grew cold while his were warm. His heart beat while hers.... She looked at their hands as if vaguely amused by his gesture and carefully adjusted hers to his surprise, she entwined their fingers and rested her head back on his shoulder, resting those locked fingers on their lap. She blinked sleepily and looked out onto the horizon.

He felt the deterrent burning up within him. Perhaps he was soon to follow. It didn’t bother him. He’d been prepared to go with Zoe, Clara was no less worthy. Zoe had been proud, but she would never have taken his hand like this. Why he wondered?

“Is it worth it if they hurt, you even then?” He asked, Clara, already slipping beyond the veil still remembered the conversation, just not the context and nodded sagely, which was more of a nuzzle against his chest.

“Of course, it’s not trust or real bonding you can’t hurt each other a little. The reward for the dog is taking the risk and choosing **not** to even when every part of them wants to. The reward is they get what they really want. Really need. We joke about lone wolves but a dog isn’t a dog without a pack and lone wolves are only alone temporarily while they look for a pack. Just like humans aren’t really human without each other. Sometimes you do hurt each other… and then you learn to forgive too.” She tipped her head up to look at his face again, smiling. “Dogs are great, you know, they love you unconditionally. Once they trust you. There’s nothing like earning that. Maybe that’s what you need, **_a puppy._** ” He smiled at her, at her brightness and her youth and all the affection she felt for him that he didn’t deserve in the least… but was beginning to understand he might actually need.

She drank in the softest expression she’d ever seen him wear, his eyes like shining wet stones. Not black but that lovely mixture of blue and hazel flecked like freckles around his Iris’s. _Your not so scary you know_ , she thought absently, but he heard her still though she was too far gone to note it.

“I’m going to miss you.” He wanted her to know that, despite being the only one who would remember, he wanted to gather her up. Gather her up and swallow her whole. He wanted to keep her, and he hadn’t nearly enough. The blood on his tongue was _nothing_.

He clutched her body, as he clutched her mind. Had there been more left she might have been alarmed, but instead she raised an incredulous brow beneath a fluff of blonde, laughing a little squirming in his grip as she was squashed to his chest.

“Sir!?” She squeaked, muffled against the his white shirt, noting the tickle of stray threads where a button was missing at the collar, but laughing a little in amusement as she squirmed, almost playfully. 

“Why!? Am I going somewhere? Sir-?”

She laughed, but it was an echo and she was an echo, an imprint of warmth cooling, a body resisting death the mind had already accepted and slipped into. 

* * *

The blood already fouled on his tongue, he broke away to crush her hollow body against him. The taste of her blood, the scent of it strangely tinny in a familiar way, leaving him with a wave of hunger and strangely sleepiness.

And he waited. Waited for that deterrent to burn through him.

But it didn’t and the pain didn’t stop either.

And he realized what he was feeling was just loss and it wasn’t going anywhere.

‘ _Did someone kill your favorite human? Such a pity.’_

Lydia mocked over the speakers. He felt her watching from the cameras and turned up to show her his smile.

“Whatever you may think, Agatha isn’t going to save you.” Anything he had felt was gone. In place a feeling of singular determination and focus, focus too cold to even be called blood lust.

He was beyond even that now. Actually he was feeling strangely giddy suddenly.

* * *

Lydia in Agatha’s office watched as fog began creeping and inching and unfurling soon to blot out the camera entirely. The camera in the hallway showed it unfurling from beneath the door, obscuring the fallen bodies of Stein's soldiers. Soon to blot out everything. Still she smiled despite her shudder.

She didn’t have the deterrent so making Dracula take care of himself so to speak would solve another problem. She'd been disappointed that he hadn't taken the bait by destroying those in the room and therefore himself which was what she'd hoped for. She hadn't accounted for so much 'self possession', but it didn't matter.

She’d play bait. Once he was gone... Agatha couldn’t hurt her _wouldn’t_ hurt her, Agatha she could handle.


	19. Et tus Brutus?

**Chapter 19**

**Et Tus Brutas?**

It had been a long time since Agatha had felt quite so alive. So alive she’d begun to lose herself to the thrill. After the first one, it was easy- too easy. 

They drew her, their pounding hearts like old drums pounded in ancient primal ritual. The pace increasing upon her approach, then expiring beneath her lips until she found another.

She lived in those heartbeats, her joy expiring with them before mounting again.

Sudden mist obscuring her vision didn’t disturb her, she could hear and smell. But being slammed into a wall did. She snarled and clawed. Only to have her hands fastened and pinned above her head. A mouth slammed into hers.

He kissed her and as he kissed her, her teeth split his tongue and his blood flooded her mouth mingling with the fresh living.

She tasted sunlight, a fresh brine and cool whipping wind of the sea for a moment. Like a breath of fresh air, she captured the smiling face of Clara glancing up at her for just a moment before storm clouds moved in and there was only darkness. She gasped as she was brought thundering into it and spun, hitting something hard behind her back. She stumbled out of the darkness into a larger room. 

_A familiar room. One with a chest board and dusty cases of wine._

Agatha opened her eyes to see his closed as their tongues mingled. His body pressed to hers with a strange passion and desperation. Their world was white and remote and she could still smell the blood of the soldiers so near, and hear the distant heartbeats. 

He’d taken her hair down and she might have mistaken him for a man with the urgency of his mouth and the way he pressed himself to her. Agatha attempted to part but he resisted, and she pivoted her body weight, throwing his off balance. She slammed him into the wall where he’d had her pinned earning a grunt from their locked mouths. She should have pulled away,but his fingers lingered buried in her hair and there was something so inviting about the feeling of his tongue. An exquisite distraction… but one she could not heed. She withdrew.

“What was that for?”

“Can’t a man kiss a woman for being beautiful?” 

“It’s a strange time for charm Count, Clara is-?” How much time had she been lost in the blood feud?

“As dead as your pet is soon to be.” He said and Agatha to his surprise said nothing, her face receded grimly as his had at her mention of Clara.

“I got distracted.” She muttered biting back her regret.

“Its not your fault.” He told her, licking the blood from his lips. “I figured out what’s been bothering me, about you.” Agatha frowned without understanding. “Something about the blood Lydia’s been giving you. She’s been drugging you with the blood of the dying Agatha. It makes you sleepy, sluggish, dream even, and from what I tasted _very_ hungry. Don’t blame yourself.” It was strangely kind of him to say that, out of character even and she watched him with suspicion as he straightened himself from the wall with grim resolution in his eyes.

“Come on, we're getting closer. There’s four more down the hall, I expect you can handle them?”

“Without question.” So much blood had sharpened her, cleaning out the 'dead' dregs the and the poison which had been clouding and polluting her mind.

“Good, I’m saving myself you see.”

* * *

Jack had watched as Dracula released Clara from his embrace and lay her gently to the ground, seeming to speak though he could not hear and rising, an eerie white fog suddenly rising, billowing like smoke from the ‘dragons’ mouth. Clara’s expression was slack and still, he had crossed her arms gently when he laid her there and Jack knew she was dead. Jack had heard Lydia’s taunt. He couldn’t believe what was happening. That Lydia had - but he hadn’t really known Lydia, only that Agatha trusted the woman, likely with her life… Something that he was certain she was now regretting. 

The mist was thickening, rising off the floor. Dracula stepped out of the room. Leaving them. 

It seemed both forever and no time before the doors were opening again, but it was difficult to see through the whirling fog. He caught sight of men in suits, Stein mercenaries who had once marched the halls as allies. They were doing something… He squinted and then managed to see that it seemed like they were picking something off of the floor.

Clara’s body

They left in a trail of eddying mist, swallowed whole.

“Want to play cards?” Mikel asked wryly from the floor. Still holding his hand over his wounded shoulder. 

“How can you be so calm. Your friends just…” It felt cruel to say it but Mikel seemed unperturbed. Mikel simply shifted to remove something from his pocket. His playing cards of course. He ran his thumb over the top card almost affectionately and surprised Jack by speaking. 

“In our line of work if only your friends get killed and you live, that is considered a lucky day.” It had been the most Mikel had ever spoken to him. “Come on, I hate playing solitaire.”

* * *

Lydia sat patiently behind the desk waiting. A low layer of fog had filled the room. The screens behind her were white, as if they had walked into some kind of purgatory. She hadn’t been able to find the access to the deterrent anywhere despite how she’d looked. This was her last best chance, and option. 

The radio crackled.

“We got the body. Were extracting her to Stein now along with the rest of the men.”

“Copy that, make sure to close the door behind you. Signing off.”

“Good luck Ma’am.” 

The door shook in its frame and she shuddered. How had it come to this?

“Little pig little pig let me in.” Dracula crooned from behind the door. Lydia licked her lips biding her time. It was steel, it should take some time too…

Except Dracula didn’t _need_ doors. He emerged from the whisper of fog to throw Lydia out of her chair, grimacing as he did but ignoring it. Lydia hit the floor hard curling up waiting to be set upon. _Good kill yourself_! She wanted to laugh, except nothing happened, instead she heard the doors unlocking and she looked up to see the last face she wanted to see.

Agatha.

“You know I had hoped the three of us could get together, I just wasn’t expecting it to come together quite so quickly.” He picked her up and threw her back into the chair.

“Dracula!” Agatha cried out, her voice betraying her cold expression to be a farce. She still felt for Lydia and Lydia upon hearing it cried out.

“Why don’t you start on it yourself then.” She baited him. “From what I saw Sinclair didn’t offer you much.” He lunged but was only stopped by Agatha’s hand.

“She’s goading you.” She hissed.

“How suicidal of her.”

“Actually it's suicidal of **you** ,” Agatha reminded him quietly. “We need answers.” She turned to Lydia, pain making her eyes hollow.

“Why Lydia. Why?”

“How can you ask me that? How can you be so blind!” But Agatha was blind, god knows how long she had been but the veil was torn away now and what she saw of herself and her beloved was ugly. Ugly exhaustion, ugly desperation.

“She loves you Agatha.” Dracula said suddenly as if it was obvious and simple. 

“How can he see that but you can’t?!” 

“You do not betray, you don’t poison someone you love!”

“You betrayed me first!”

“What does that even mean Lydia!”

“That weekend when you kissed me I knew I wanted to be with you forever. But that was the day you shut me out, that you shut down. Shut down the Lazarus project Stiens work. You gave up, and you left me with no choice.”

“It’s all been Stein and you all along hasn’t it. My god, right under my nose. In my own lab. The blood you used… It it was my own. That is why it has links to Dracula’s contaminant.” She felt like she was going to vomit. 

“Partially, yes. When Victor left after his family's accident he was determined to resurrect his sister and convinced that our research could be used not just to destroy undead or ‘cure’ it but to create life. Life for everybody!”

“Patented vampirism.”

“A forever for me and you! The only hope we could be together, Agatha I did it all for you, so you wouldn’t have to be alone anymore… and we are so close! So close Stein just needs a little more time… He thinks Clara’s the key to create a stable version without the flaws of the first and if that's the case-”

“Clara is dead.” Dracula said, as if Lydia who had pulled the trigger had forgotten, she shrugged.

“All he needs is the body and they've taken that. I suppose we should thank you, raising you and taking your blood helped Immensely move forward our plans. It’s why we planned those little outbreaks in the first place. Agatha was the only one who knew where you were. It took awhile to convince her.” He snarled and she flinched except that he didn’t land the blow.

“Where are they taking her? You will tell me one way or the other.” He grabbed her face so hard her jaw popped and she whimpered. Her eyes flew wide to Agatha’s only half pleading before they turned up to Dracula’s watery but filled with a hysteria. 

“What are you so afraid of Dracula?” She hissed, egging him. She just needed to remove him… Remove him so Agatha wasn’t so distracted anymore.

“Absolutely nothing.” He drawled and exposed her neck. He felt her blood surging, he felt the ache in his chest grow. Lydia smiled wildly with glee at Agatha, extending her hand to her. 

Agatha’s face was blank and distant, but she took her ex lovers hand and squeezed gently. 

Agatha didn’t tell Dracula to stop. She felt Lydia flinch through their grip and kept her eyes on hers, watching as the glee turned to horror, and confusion. Her hand suddenly tried to wrest it out of Agatha's grip but she held it crushing it in hers. 

Dracula was sucking madly. Gleefully crushing her, her scent bloomed in the air, spurting between his gluttonous gasps. Agatha’s mouth watered like a sharks drawn to blood despite her horror and despair. 

“No, no no stop the deterrent! The d-d-” Lydia mumbled, blithering without understanding, searching Agatha’s face, her lips already going numb, her complexion going grey.

“There is no deterrent Lydia. The system installed was one which provoked pain but burnt itself out long ago. I relief on Draculas’ beliefs which held him in check for hundreds of years to convince him that the threat was real, and it was enough that he believed it to be true to make it so.”

“A-agatha.”

“I’m sorry my love. I am so sorry.” She collapsed to the desk top still holding her lovers hands listening to her last gasping dying breaths until they went limp. Dracula shuddered like a dog shaking itself free from the rain. He dropped the body down carelessly, like dropping a sack of potatoes or a basket of laundry and the hand was torn from Agatha’s grip. 

She covered her face with a sob and collapsed to the floor like a child.

“Et tu Brutas?” Dracula murmured, nudging the limp corpse with his foot. “Only the ones closest can do that kind of damage. There is nothing quite like it, wouldn’t you agree Agatha?” He drawled and stepping around the desk grabbed her by her hair, wrenching her up and throwing her into the wall where he pinned her.

“Belief was enough, how _clever_ . You’ve always been so _clever_ Agatha.” He snarled. “How is that working out for you? Because I can tell you how it's working out for me…” He was replaying Clara’s death. How he could have **had** her, had **all** of her and that had been stolen from him. Stolen by Agatha’s little mind game all these _months_ a pathetic good little doggy.

“It’s over, everything I worked for, meaningless. A joke, I became that which I sought to destroy, then fostered its creation in labs created to suppress it! Have a laugh, go gorge yourself on the world or what's left of it after Stein succeeds! Just let me be free of it. Free me as you freed Jonathan from your plague!” She flinched ready for the blow. Only there was none.

“Oi! In here!” Dracula snarled as scuffling footsteps approached and Wilson, with his arm under Mikel who was supported on his other side by Jack whose eyes darted about settling upon them in the fog.

“Dr. Helsing!” 

“Leave us Jack, if you know whats good for you. He’s off the leash.” Dracula snarled but Wilson, eased his arm off Mikel and stepped into the room.

“Aye, about bloody time.” Wilson muttered and ignored Agatha, holstering his weapon and approaching Dracula to lay a big paw on his shoulder. He looked into Dracula’s savage face not impassively for he could see the mans unease but resolutely and with careful respect. “They load’ed her into a van. Those bloody Stein cockscum. Whatever this is ain’t over less your throwin it in-” Wilson said carefully, and eased back with a questioning look. “Are ya’ sir?”

Dracula met the man's gaze for a moment. Ever aware of the pounding of his heart and how easily he could tear into the man’s flesh. Of course he could kill him but... But then there was Agatha, limp like a doll in his grip and he still had her to concern himself with.

_Sometimes you hurt each other, but then you get to forgive_.

Was that Clara’s ghost flickering about his vision? His mind?

But no- it was something else. 

_'Sentiment perhaps?_ ' Zoe asked quietly, in her tired but gentle way somewhere near his ear just out of sight. The woman with her face was hollow looking and he released her, realizing that she needed no punishment. The worst had already been done to her.

“I know where they're going.” He told Wilson.

“Where?” Agatha asked, bewildered, and uncertain, she wasn’t sure if she recognized or trusted the look on Dracula’s face. She felt as if she was missing something. He couldn’t really be trying to help still could he?

“I see you. She was trying to tell us the whole time the poor thing.”

“I see you? What do you mean?”

“Not ‘I see you’. Not words _letters_ \- ICU. Lydia knew quite a bit more than she was telling. Stein's sister is the entity, she’s located in the London Saint Joseph's hospital where underground Stein produces his experiments. That's where he’ll take Clara.” He began forward, the mist now receding disappearing like morning fog between their feet. The men turned, ready to follow. Jack made a panicked face as Dracula suddenly scooped Mikel up and flung the man over his shoulder. “Come on now time is of the essence.” He said, without looking back. Agatha hesitated. Wondering if she should stay or leave. But her self pity didn’t last longer than it took for them to get to the hall. _I’ll be damned if I let Dracula clean up my mess_ . In what world was _Dracula_ a savior to mankind, and Agatha its destruction? She wiped the tears from her eyes and gave her beloved one last look.

It was the image of her in her nightmare laying prone on the floor. She neared her only to close her wide staring eyes which captured the bewilderment and shock of her death and filled Agatha with bitter sorrows. She had killed her as surely as she had in that nightmare. Her love killed her, drove her to madness. She might as well have drained her beloved herself, for she had stolen her soul long ago with that fateful kiss, when she’d tasted Lydia, and Lydia had tasted what eternity might be like through that kiss.

“I was almost worried you'd disappoint me.” Dracula said as she caught up.

“Spend your mind on worrying about what's ahead, Victor Stein is well aware we are coming.”

“This Stein fellow he’s, he’s the reason why this is happening?” Jack asked what the Mercs had no care to bother with. They were following Dracula’s lead but Agatha spoke, explaining what she knew and now understood.

“Stein was a student many years ago. He left me to open his own firm, he took on government contracts, claimed that he was to guard the gates of government research into the undead and that we would share information, research but he would ensure it was kept out of. . . Corrupt hands.” She trailed and Dracula picked it up drawling.

“Instead of guarding the gate he decided to open it, using Lydia to funnel research and materials to create his little virus and having us all chase- our- tails.” Dracula drawled. They were nearing the underground parking. “Look, we might want to hurry. We only have five minutes or so if memory serves… Lydia’s memory, that is.”

“For what?” Jack asked. Dracula pointed. 

“For those to go off.” He pointed into the darkened underground parking where pillars were wrapped with explosive devices with blinking lights.

“Blood-y ‘ell!” Dracula was faster than the all were he had a van open with Mikel thrown in with him at the wheel pulling it in reverse. Company vehicles had keys in the visor, but he hadn’t chosen randomly either this was a very special van. 

Agatha jumped in deftly, the vehicle still rolling back leaving Wilson and jack lunging as he put it into forward. She pulled Wilson in and then who lunged half tripping. Wilson grabbed him by his breeches and he was heaved inside. The force of Dracula's turn slamming the sliding door shut behind them leaving the humans gasping.

“You know I've never driven before.” He said conversationally, pushing his foot to the floor and launching hem straight ahead. “But don’t worry I’ve drank enough from those who do, so I suppose it's like riding a bike, which now that I think about it is also something I’ve never done!” He shouted as they blasted through the underground with enough time for the rumble of detonation to begin behind them. A thick smoke followed them bursting out after them as it began to crumble and they launched into the surface where the sun shone quite brightly. He was thinking now about riding a bike. He’d only bothered with one of those stationary cycles and where was the fun in that? He was forming a bucket list now in his head. Motorcycles, fast cars...

He needed sunglasses. But there she was rapturous in his view suddenly blazing in that bright blue sky. Just for a moment over those craggy cliffs she swore saw- just for a moment- what might have been a shadow of a bench outlined with a person sitting inside it.

But in a blink it was just a blur, a figment. He smiled still though and popped the visor down to see there were a pair of sunglasses there and flipped them open.

“You know what I’m thinking?” He called into the back suddenly.

“Nobody bloody knows what you’re thinking you bloody psychopath! Are you watching the road?!” Jack squawked.

“Mexico. You know I’ve never been and Jesse always made it seem like such a delightful place-”

“There’s a right nice spot we know, eh Mikel?”

“Good _cantaloupe-_.”Mikel gestured a with a wide open groping hand at his chest to gesture an ample bosom.

“Dear god is this how I’m going to die.” Jack gasped weakly drawing his hand over his face.

“Run by one of the cartel, let me tell you, they know how to party!”

“We all die at some point Jack. the point is figuring it out what makes it worthwhile before the curtain closes.” He’d figured it out a little later than most, but he thought he was catching on now. Agatha stared at him, silent through this entire thing and wondering exactly where Dracula was and who this creature was at the wheel.

“I’ll drink to that,” grunted Wilson, 

“You’ll drink anything Wilson.” 

“Aye then yer a man after my own heart I think Count.” Dracula and Mikel chuckled as he arranged himself into a recline, his arm under his head pulling the oldest merc skill from the book he was quickly in a doze. Mikel’s head lolled slightly in response and despite the surging roads he soon was snoring. 

Jack's eyes roamed the back of the van, where he bumped along still on the floor and wincing, rising to sit on one of the long benches and eyeing the weapons cages inside the vehicle.

Was that a sword? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~Such a twist!~  
> There will be an indeterminate hiatus while I work on part 2 (season three?)  
> What did you think?


End file.
